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REASON, HISTORY 
AND RELIGION 

BY REV. J^livir'tlEIMENSNYDER, D. D. 

Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Milton, Pa. 

Author of " DANGERS OF YOUNG MEN," " RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN," " THE 
SUPPORT OF THE MINISTRY," "THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S MOVEMENT IN THE 
CHURCH," "the bible AND BIBLE STUDY," and " CHURCH LOYALTY." 



* 



PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR 
BY THE 

LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



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USRARYofCONQRESS? 
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COPY Q/ 



Copyright, 1907, 

BY 

M. REIMENSNYDKR. 



This book is respectfully dedicated to all those 
who hold to the historic faith of the Inspired 
Word of God, which has stood the test of 
criticism for J 600 years without sustaining 
loss of prestige, and which so eminent a 
man and statesman as the late Prem,ier of 
England, the Hon. William E. Gladstone, 
M. P., has entitled in his splendid work 
• * The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture. ' ' 

J. M. R. 



" Where is the wise? Where is the disputer of 
this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom 
of the world?'' 

" The world through its wisdom knew not God'' 



FOREWORD. 



'T^HE author in this book aims to correct wrong 
-■- impressions .^and ^ erroneous] views resulting 
from speculative articles in current literature and 
in some histories and text-books used in some [of 
our schools and colleges, treating upon ancient his- 
tory and the pre-historic period. 

There is a popular tendency on the part of some 
authors to make statements based upon mere as- 
sumption and pure speculation, without any real 
authority, no matter how these opinions may come 
in conflict with heretofore accepted chronology or 
the authentic historic statements of the Bible. 
Such writers appear to the true student of history, 
science, truth, and morals entirely indifferent to 
the consequences resulting therefrom to faith and 
morals. 

Whilst this book is designedly clothed in popular 
dress, it is based upon the most careful research 
and thorough study of the subject. In its prepara- 
tion the writer has consulted authorities on philos- 
ophy, anthropology, archaeology, science, the latest 
authors on Genesis — Meyer, Delitzsch, Lange ; 
" Science and the Bible," " The Six Days of Cre- 

(V) 



VI Foreword. 

ation," "The First Page of the Bible," the Bible 
itself ; Ridpath — Ancient Histories, Histories of 
Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, and China ; " The 
Universal History of the World," " The New Ref- 
■erence History of the World," "Babel and Bible," by 
Delitzsch; "The Bible and Babylon," by Eduard 
Koenig, of the University of Bonn ; " Explorations 
in Bible I^ands," by Hilprecht, of the University of 
Pennsylvania ; and others. 

It contains history and facts alike profitable to 
the Christian and skeptic. 

J. M. Reimensnyder. 
Mii,TON, Pa. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 
Anciknt History and the; Bibi^k, .... 9 

CHAPTER II. 
Thk SupkrnaturaIv — God, 27 

CHAPTER III. 
REVK1.AT10N, 42 

CHAPTER IV. 
Thk IvIFK of Faith and thk I^ifk of Doubt, . 51 

CHAPTER V. 
Thk Sabbath, 64 

CHAPTER VI. 
What is the Greatest in History? ... 79 

CHAPTER VII. 

Pii^ATE's Question — " What Shai.1, I Do Then 
WITH Jesus ? " 87 

(vii) 



The Bible and religion are sustained by reason^ 
history^ science^ and discovery^ and are anchored in 
the inner consciousness and spiritual intuitions of 
man unmoved throughout the ages. The highest and 
noblest types of m.en in history ever approached the 
truest conceptions of divinity and morals and devel- 
oped the most splendid citizenship. These facts stand 
as a monument to their history and to their faith. 



Reason, History, and Religion 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCIENT HISTORY AND THE BIBLE. 

T TISTORY is generally divided into Ancient, 
"*• -*■ Mediaeval, and Modern History. Ancient 
History, or written history, begins about the time 
of the founding of the city of Rome, B. C. 753, 
though this period is variously estimated by differ- 
ent authors as far back as B. C. 930, according to the 
value attached to certain ancient tablets containing 
lists of Egyptian and Assyrian kings. Ancient His- 
tory closes 476 A. D. Mediaeval History begins with 
476 A. D. and closes with the Reformation period 
in the sixteenth century, and Modern History begins 
with the Reformation. 

The period from the creation of the world to the 
beginning of Ancient History, a period, as variously 
estimated, covering about 3300 years B. C, is called 
the Pre-historic Period, or that period when we have 
no reliable written records apart from the accounts in 
the Sacred Writings of Moses, contained in the 
Book of Genesis in the Bible. Apart from the 

(9) 



10 Beason, History, and Religion. 

Bible, any information concerning this long and 
important period is largely speculation. Within 
the last century, and within the latter decades of 
this century, important discoveries have been made 
in that part of the world where the peopling of the 
world began. England, France, Germany, Russia, 
Turkey, and the United States, have been greatly 
interested in investigating by excavations the im- 
mense mounds found in the valley of the Euphrates, 
where it has been discovered that the most ancient 
cities and civilization of the world have been 
located. Prior to this it was denied by skeptics 
that some such cities and rulers ever existed as are 
mentioned in the Bible. These excavations, which 
have remained in the sandy plains of Shinar for 
several thousand years undisturbed by man, and 
the abode of owls, bats, and wild beasts, as the 
prophets foretold, prove that the Bible record has 
been substantially true in all it has declared con- 
cerning that early period. And the most able critics 
have generally united in declaring that these dis- 
coveries have furnished the most wonderful sustain- 
ing testimony as to the truthfulness of the Bible, of 
all the ages. Some modern scientists, historians, 
and popular writers, however, basing their esti- 
mates upon the depth of sand in the desert swept 
by winds and storms, as an evidence of the years of 
decay, have expressed the belief that here is evi- 
dence that man has been much longer on the earth. 
It is claimed by others that the records of the 



Ancient History and the Bible. 11 

rocks, in the discovery of geological research, make 
it impossible for all these things to have occurred 
within a period less than thousands of years, their 
various estimates being as wide apart as conceivable. 
Still others argue that Archaeology (the science or 
study of antiquities), such as the remains of build- 
ings, monuments, inscriptions, implements, and 
other relics, written manuscripts and forms of lan- 
guage point to a much earlier date. Some writers 
estimate this pre-historic period all the way from 
one to twenty-five millenniums, or thousand years. 
They speak of millenniums as though they were 
days, without any apparent consideration of con- 
sequences. This very fact, without other argument, 
evidences the utter folly of such reckless cal- 
culations. We can conceive of no more dijficult 
task than the fixing of dates and years by relics, of 
which modern man practically knows nothing defi- 
nite. It is pure speculation, and clearly based upon 
nothing real. As one deeply interested, and a stu- 
dent of these things, we can discover nothing defi- 
nite in all to discredit the Bible chronology. It is 
never taken into consideration that, in the early cen- 
turies, mighty developments may have been taking 
place when comparatively few inhabitants were 
upon the earth. It is not claimed that the chronol- 
ogy of the Bible is perfectly understood, or abso- 
lutely correctly calculated, by man. But it is 
claimed that the records of Moses are correct, when 
properly interpreted, and that they are the only 



12 Reason, History, and Religion. 

reliable records covering all that wonderful pre- 
historic period ; and that no tablets of clay dug from 
the desert sands, or inscriptions contained upon 
standing or fallen obelisks, or tradition, concerning 
which nothing positively can be proven, should 
stand for a single moment against the records of 
that one great historic book, which alone has stood 
the test of ages, ^without successful contradiction, 
upon all subjects which it mentions, covering a 
period 'of fully 3600 years. There is a peculiarity 
in the Bible history which must be taken into great 
account in its history : that is, the great longevity 
of the lives of men in the early ages ; this becomes 
a great factor in the question of reliable records, 
making its events most readily handed down to suc- 
ceeding generations. 

The most prominent historians concede that no 
reliable written history dates farther back than about 
six or seven hundred years before Christ ; whilst the 
Bible records written by Moses reach a date of 
(149 1 B. C.) over 1400 years before the Christian 
era. The Bible gives the only satisfactory state- 
ments concerning the origin of the world and of 
man ; it also states the birth and death of men and 
the great length of their lives, which gives us an ex- 
ceedingly satisfactory record of pre-historic periods. 
For illustration : from Adam to Abraham, a period 
of over two thousand years, this entire period is 
covered in the lives of four men. Adam lived 930 
years ; Lamech, "j"]"] years ; Noah, the son of Lamech, 



Ancient History and the Bible. 13 

950 years — 600 of tHese before the flood, and 350 
after it. Shem, the son of Noah, was born nearly 
100 years before the flood, and lived until after Abra- 
ham and his son Isaac were born. What wonderful 
links of time ! Tradition and clay tablets furnish 
no such testimony. What opportunities for furnish- 
ing concise historic facts from one generation to 
another ! Surely the Bible has a great purpose in 
stating these facts, which cease after the reliable 
historic periods commence. From^the call of Abra- 
ham to the written records of Moses is 430 years ; 
this period is covered in the lives of four men, 
Abraham, Jacob, Kohath, and Amram, the father of 
Moses. Thus, from Adam to Moses, a period of 
about 2500 years, the history was contained in the 
lives of nine men ; what other history can be con- 
densed into such a wonderful record ? The charac- 
ter of the history, as compared with that of tablets 
and monuments, is like that of truth and mythology. 
Thus, the most authentic history of the world is 
furnished. 

Whilst some scientists and geologists claim that 
the days of the Bible were millenniums beyond all 
estimation or limit, their only evidence of that is 
pure speculation on the uneven records of the rocks, 
the unknown relics of antiquity, tradition, and 
other unreliable sources. Nothing positive has ever 
been presented. Even were the days millenniums, 
it would not contradict the Bible ; it would only 
change the opinions of those who think otherwise. 



14 Reason, History, and Religion. 

Certain things are evident concerning the days 
of creation. At the writing of Moses the days 
were marked by the sun, and the language used, as 
well as other Scriptural references, lead the average 
reader to infer that they were natural days. The 
sun was created on the fourth day, and placed and 
appointed to mark days and nights and seasons. 
The language used in the days before and after the 
sun is similar. The terms used describing each 
period are : evening, morning, day one. Certainly 
the Sabbath, man's first day, was only of twenty- 
four hours. The whole difficulty arises in the 
scientist assuming to measure the creative power of 
God. 

Man has no standard by which to measure the 
creative power of God. The Earth, which was in 
itself teeming with life by the power of God, was 
commanded to bring forth abundantly, and it did, 
and geology shows every evidence of its response. 
By the power of God, which is infinite, results of 
millenniums could be accomplished in a moment of 
time as well as in millenniums. 

No event in the history of the world is more uni- 
versally attested, both by the history and traditions 
of all nations from all parts of the world, than the 
Deluge. Sacred history asserts that all the fount- 
ains of the great deep were broken up ; this is a 
strong and significant expression, indicating great 
geological changes, the change of water-beds and 
the courses of waterways, and furnishes an answer 



Ancient History and the Bible. 15 

to many of the questions suggested by Geology. 
Geology is limited in its researches to a ver\' small 
portion of the earth's crust, and knows nothing 
about its center. Hence, the conclusions of Geology 
are in large part speculative. 

Science and discovery have not reached, and 
never can reach, that point when they can dictate 
to this divine record. Whether the days were 
twenty-four hours, or indefinite periods of time, 
is a matter with God, perhaps, and not with men, 
nor does it have any bearing upon the truth of 
Scripture. The speculation on these Creative periods 
are like those on the origin of man. Centuries 
have brought these scientists no nearer the proof of 
their theories, and have placed no discredit upon 
the sacred account. Their theories have changed 
with decades, and the Bible has not changed in 
thousands of years. 

The direct evidence upon which some writers 
and historians base their estimation of a greatly 
longer period for the presence of man upon the 
earth is a list of Egyptian kings, which, like Chi- 
nese history, claims fabulous dates. It has been 
clearly shown by Ridpath that the highest authority 
on Chinese history (Professor Legge, of Oxford,) 
gives 775 B. C. as the earliest date in Chinese his- 
tory which can be determined with certainty, 
whilst it is a well-known fact that they, like other 
nations of ancient history, claim thousands of years 
of history. This earliest date of certainty in Chi- 



16 Reason, History, and Religion. 

nese history corresponds with that which can be 
called reliable in the other nations of antiquity, 
such as Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria. 

The earliest known civilizations were the Egyp- 
tians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. These nations 
occupied very nearly the same territory in the val- 
ley of the Euphrates, a notable river, the largest 
in western Asia. Whilst these nations are men- 
tioned in the Bible, and some of their rulers, they 
are only referred to as they came in contact with 
the Hebrews, whose history is especially contained 
in the Bible. Very little is known of their origin 
or early history. They, at times, overran and over- 
lapped each other. The sources of information 
outside the Bible are the clay tablets found in the 
ruins of their great cities, and the inscriptions 
found upon monuments, and a list of their dynasties 
or kings. This list of kings was prepared by 
Manetho, by order of one of the kings. Manetho 
was a royal Egyptian priest, who was ordered by 
the king to write a history of Eg>^pt and her gods. 
His history is lost, but the list of the dynasties has 
been found. He lived about 260 years B. C. ; so 
that his work is of late date. It is also known that 
this list of kings, which some historians run back 
as far as 6000 years B. C, and others extend to 
8000 B. C, was made up from broken fragments of 
tablets, monumental inscriptions, and from tradi- 
tion. Little is really known as to the sources or 
the reliability of his work. It is evident, however. 



Ancient History and the Bible. 17 

that as Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower 
Egypt, under separate kings, that these kings were 
often contemporaneous, and that the length of their 
reigns is exceedingly uncertain, especially when 
you make allowance for the tendency of Eastern 
monarchs to glorify and magnify the length of their 
rule. Making proper allowance for these things 
reduces this period of time to within the ordinary 
dates assigned to these periods, and accords with the 
records of the Bible. It is also true that separate 
lists and historical events are found in the ruins of 
different cities, which differ so much from each 
other that it is impossible to reconcile them. 

The inscriptions are in Picture Language, Hiero- 
glyphic and Cuneiform, and are deciphered with 
extreme difficulty. The signs or characters are 
numerous, estimated at from 300, 500, 600, up to 
1300, and by others to several thousand. The 
significance is sometimes determined by position, 
shape, sound, its connection with others, or by the 
context, a single character representing many differ- 
ent ideas. These characters are, at times, inter- 
preted by different scholars very differently. Hence, 
as a matter of fact, they are in no way to stand 
with the authority of the Bible. Among these dis- 
coveries have been found accounts of the creation, 
flood, and some of the commandments correspond- 
ing to those of Exodus. However, those which 
pertain to God, and would have affected their relig- 
ion, are omitted, an evidence that they were 



18 Reason, History, and Religion. 

copied. Because of this some writers contend 
that the moral code of laws and civilization of 
the Hebrews, God's chosen people, were borrowed 
from these ancient civilizations. First, this posi- 
tively contradicts the Bible, whose records ante- 
date these writings by fully 700 years. Second, 
these discoveries only confirm the accounts of the 
Bible. As all nations and languages give strong 
evidence of one common origin, by their relation to 
each other, and as all the peoples of the earth have 
sprung from one family, it is natural that all nations 
and languages have some things in common. In- 
stead of this arguing against the history of the 
Bible, it strongly confirms it. Third, these accounts 
read largely like all the mythology of the ancients, 
and are clouded by all sorts of myths and impurities, 
which are far beneath the sublimity of the Bible, 
which always has a grandeur about it that carries 
the conviction of its divine inspiration. Fourth, 
it is a well-known historical fact that heathen 
nations ever tended, and now tend, to inject into 
their religious systems any striking feature of other 
systems or gods, whilst the Hebrews expressly avoided 
all such things. In order to sustain this theory, 
the eminent leader of this idea. Professor Delitzsch, 
the German skeptic, asserts that these older nations 
were monotheists, that is, believers in one god. 
This is absolutely false ; every student of ancient 
history knows that they were polytheists, that is, 
worshipers of many gods, and that the great dis- 



Ancient History and the Bible. 1^ 

tinction of the Hebrews or Israelites, in all their 
history, was that they were worshipers of Jehovah, 
the Self-existent, All-powerful, and only one true 
God, who was the Author and Creator of all things, 
a fact that separated them from all other nations of 
history. It is true that there were chief gods among 
the nations, but each city had its separate and inde- 
pendent gods, and the ten plagues of Egypt were 
directed against the ten chief gods of Egypt. Each 
nation had its own gods and shrines and altars, 
and cities and towns special gods. Gods were almost 
without number. 

" The Egyptians had no historical era ; if they 
dated at all, with very few exceptions they dated 
only by the years of 'their sovereigns." — Ridpath. 
Assyria, during the latter part of its history, had 
an exact method of reckoning years. Earlier As- 
syrian dates are calculated from a record of a total 
eclipse, 763 B. C. Earlier ancient history among 
all nations is unreliable and dependent upon lists 
of kings or dynasties, which are diflScult to under- 
stand or reconcile. China had no reliable date 
earlier than 775 B. C. The principal object of 
these lists of dynasties or records of kings, it is ad- 
mitted by historians, was to glorify the kings and to 
magnify their reigns. Ancient kings gloried in 
lengthy reigns and their historians and the inscrip- 
tions yielded to this desire, hence the unreliability 
of the inscriptions. As to the length of time to 
develop a high standard of civilization, build up a 



20 Reason, History, and Religion. 

nation or found great cities, we have only to call 
attention to the fact that this country has made the 
most marvelous progress from the landing of the 
Pilgrim Fathers in 1620 to a nation of 80,000,000 
in a period of 287 years. History also shows that 
the 70 souls who went down into Egypt with Jacob, 
in 215 years (the actual time of bondage), were 
mightier and stronger than the Egyptians according 
to their own statements, and at the Exodus under 
Moses they were a nation of nearly 3,000,000 
souls. Nations then were not as nations now in 
the twentieth century. Egypt in her greatest pros- 
perity not having more than .7,000,000 or 7,500,- 
000 population, nearly that of the State of Pennsyl- 
vania. As to the origin of man : The Mosaic 
record says that God created man in His divine 
image and likeness. This is a dual expression sig- 
nifying nature or character as well as form. It also 
says that God breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life and man became a living soul. This is as 
strong and clear as language can make it. This 
language was not used in connection with any other 
forms of life. This certainly means intelligence. 
The record also says that God formed every beast 
of the field and every fowl of the air ; and brought 
them unto the man to see what he would call them. 
"And whatsoever the man called every living 
creature, that was the name thereof. And the man 
gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, 
and to every beast of the field." This was the em- 



Ancient History and the Bible. 21 

ployment of that intelligence. Now how does this 
accord with history ? The very latest discoveries 
show clearly that to the most ancient date in some 
parts of the world the very highest states of civiliza- 
tion have prevailed. This was denied until modern 
discoveries have proved and established it beyond 
all contradiction. It cannot be shown that there 
ever has been an age without a language or a civil- 
ization. And it certainly is reasonable to believe 
that when the Almighty Author of the universe 
came to the crowning act of creation and formed 
a man in His own image and likeness, that He made 
him an intelligent being. There is not a shadow 
of evidence to advance any other theory. The state- 
ment that " Millenniums ago primeval man roamed 
the forests in a half-civilized state with the wild 
beasts," is entirely without foundation in history or 
fact. That there have been inhabitants of the earth 
of a very low order no one denies, for they can be 
found in all civilized countries of our own genera- 
ation and in the slums of our cities ; so that the 
presence of such people in the world proves nothing 
concerning the origin of man. All the efforts to 
advance the theory of the evolution of man have 
failed in several thousand years to produce a single 
illustration. In all the years of historic man and 
the development of science and evolution there is 
not a particle of evidence to contradict the Mosaic 
record on this question, and numberless evidences 
to sustain it. Geology in all its imperfections yet 



22 Reason, History, and Religion. 

sustains the order of the creative week in its advance 
from a lower to a higher, it also sustains the Bible 
in its distinct separation by kind ; and there never, in 
all the mingling of the forest or the farm, has been 
a destruction of the marks of kind ; but after thou- 
sands of years from the creation they are as distinct 
as at first ; even the fish in the sea. Archaeology' 
and anthropology cannot contradict this. Ages of 
history, all the advance of science and the dis- 
coveries of modern times, have only increased the 
millions of the most scholarly, noble, and devout of 
earth's people who firmly believe and have believed 
in all ages in the inspired Word of God and in its 
historical accuracy as to the creation of the world 
and the origin of man. 

It is a remarkable fact that just those things 
which some claim are incredible in the Bible have 
been believed by many ancient peoples, and even in 
the most mythical stories concerning them. Such 
is true of the creation, the deluge, the giving of the 
law, and the story of Jonah. The name of Jonah 
has been found in the ruins of Nineveh. The fish 
and the fish-god have been associated with religious 
ideas and worship from the earliest times. Accounts 
of the creation have been found in many nations ; 
and the Egyptian records compare in many re- 
spects with those of the Bible. All attribute the 
creation to the moving of the gods, though clouded 
with myths. The ark and the dove, with a branch 
in its mouth are found in ancient carvings. One of 



Ancient History and the Bible. 23 

the most striking of these antiquities is that of a 
priest standing with uplifted hands receiving a tab- 
let or scroll from a god. How wonderfully that cor- 
responds to the giving of the law to Moses. It 
sustains the great historic fact that good has come 
from above. Whilst many superstitions are asso- 
ciated with these things, it is a wonderfully corrobo- 
rative fact that they exist, and to such an extent 
that when the opposers of the Bible and of the 
Christian religion meet them their only way out is 
to charge that the Hebrews borrowed their moral 
code and their civilization from the surrounding 
nations. This idea, first, contradicts all history. 
Second, the Hebrew accounts are always of the most 
sublime, exalted character, that they impress 
mightily with the character of truth ; whilst the 
other accounts bear the marks of the myths and 
superstitions of their civilization. One of these 
accounts of the deluge has a boat marked with the 
letters NOB for Noah. To the believer and Chris- 
tian student of ancient history, they strikingly 
confirm his faith, for through the mists he can 
clearly see that these are traditions handed from 
one to another from what they have learned from 
the Hebrew or Mosaic account. It is claimed that 
Moses compiled his accounts from older books. 
What of that ? In what other way is history written 
now ? and yet we believe it. Adam and the early 
descendants may have had perfectly correct records 
under divine direction. Yet even this is speculation. 



24 Reason, History, and Religion. 

It must be remembered that the greatest scientists, 
scholars, and historians have no trouble to have faith 
in all the centuries in these sacred historic accounts 
of the Bible. It is only a limited class from whom 
these objections arise. It is also worthy of mention 
that these earlier nations had the division of the 
week of seven days, which is not a natural division. 
And that to the seventh or Sabbath they attached 
special character and named it the Sabbath. To 
some it was a day of rest, to others it had a religious 
character and was called the day of reconciliation. 
The early nations had Penitential psalms or hymns, 
prayers, altars, temples, shrines, and all were relig- 
ious. There are also striking references to the 
presence of Abraham and of Joseph in Egypt, the 
years of plenty and the storing of corn and the after 
famine ; the god-birth as in that of Gautama of 
China, the practice of circumcision and of baptism ; 
in fact, in some phase or idea many of the distinct 
features of the Christian religion have a type in 
heathen systems. Finally, whatever else may be 
said, it is universally admitted by every honest 
historian or scholar that the Bible is the most won- 
derfully authentic and reliable of all the sacred 
books or histories of the ages. 

This is true ; in its claims of Divine Inspiration, 
in its vast reach of ages and of subjects, and in its in- 
ternal character, authorship, and above all, perhaps, 
in the fact that thousands of years in the develop- 
ment of science or discovery, history and the increase 



Ancient History and the Bible. 25 

of understanding have had no effect whatever upon 
its reliability. It stands yet without a rival as the 
Book of books. Nothing is like it either in science 
or history. This book says, that Jehovah is the 
self-existent God. No other book makes a similar 
statement in all the sacred books of the world. It 
states that God created man in His own image and 
likeness, and all history and the marvelous glory of 
manhood and womanhood as compared with the 
animals evidence this truth in all the advance of 
history and of civilization. Man's physical, mental, 
and spiritual nature constitute a distinction that 
science cannot remove with all its speculative evo- 
lution. No animal intelligence approaches that of 
typical man. 

The Christian student then rejoices in discovery, 
in advancing science, and in all the true records of 
ancient history. With his Bible in his right hand 
and history and science in the left, and his God over 
all, he treads with a firm step and an undying faith 
the distant lands of the Bible, and joins in upturn- 
ing the ruins of a past civilization, confident that 
whatever is revealed from the records of clay which 
have been buried in the desert sands for nearly three 
thousand years, will if possible, do as it has already 
done for centuries — strengthen that foundation on 
which he has unfalteringly stood through all the 
mysteries of past ages, until he has reached the 
glorious clearing of the sky of truth, as its Sun has 
passed from the clouds of superstition into the open 



26 Reason, History, and Religion. 

sky of thought ; in this splendid twentieth century, 
in this God-given land of liberty and of the plant- 
ing of this Christian nation and the modern Chris- 
tian Church. 

IvCt us all then gratefully acknowledge what the 
Great God of History has done for us, and stand 
loyally upon those blessed and eternal truths and 
principles which led our Anglo-Saxon ancestors to 
lay the granite foundations of Church and State 
which have made us what we are and have given 
to us this noblest heritage of the ages of history. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SUPERNATURAL GOD. 

'T^HE question concerning the belief in the super- 
-*- natural, the eternal, and in God and His rela- 
tions to the world and man, constitutes the greatest 
question ever presented to human thought ; because 
it involves man's immortalit)' and destiny beyond 
death. There can be no future life if there is no 
God. There must be a Supreme Ruler of the Uni- 
verse if there is to be development, order, and control. 
What the world in histor}- has thought and believed 
becomes a matter of universal interest, for all men 
believe that there is a historic link connecting the 
ages in civilization and in faith and worship. To 
the answer and consideration of these questions, the 
best thought of the greatest minds of the ages has 
been engaged, and as they advanced in their research 
upon these questions they approached the same con- 
clusions and the belief in one true God who was 
and is over all. In fact, all the oreat nations of 
antiquity who worshiped many minor gods held 
that there was one chief god who at times was con- 
sulted and had rule over all. There must be some 
solid and great underlying principle or fact in his- 
tor}- to account for this oneness of idea running 
through all systems of gods, worship, and supersti- 

(27) 



28 Reason, History, and Religion. 

tion. Notwithstanding the fact that each nation 
had gods of its own, called gods of the land, yet 
a careful study of ancient history and mythology 
undeniably proves that all these gods and systems 
of worship had one common origin and can be traced 
backward to the same source, through connecting 
links. This is a strong argument for the fact that, 
at the beginning, the statements of Scripture con- 
cerning God, man, and religion are true. 

All ancient religions had many things in common, 
proving one common source ; and languages have 
had words and phrases so similar as to denote one 
derivation ; this fact has been the only one making 
their translation possible. This has even been true 
in the sign and character languages which were 
adopted to prevent deciphering them. At the 
building of the Tower of Babel, 2234 B. C. [the 
word Babel signifies confusion, division, and rebel- 
lion] , the historic account clearly shows that at that 
time not only did the division result in the forming 
of nations, but also that men divided on the subject 
of religion. This is learned from the names given 
to cities and to children. There is a distinct line 
of separation. Those who retained their faith 
and worship in the one true God and those who 
rebelled. One kept up the spiritual idea of God 
and the other turned to the works of God or nature 
as symbolized in sun, moon, and planets rather than 
the principles and teachings of God. So the worship 
of light, fire, and the heavenly bodies became their 



The Supernatural— God. 29 

first gods. Hence arose the heathen idol worship 
which was a degenerate idea from the first of symbols 
or representations of God. The Bible and history 
agree in these first forms of worship being practiced. 
The fruit of this is apparent to-day. Both classes, 
however, retained a system of worship and teaching 
concerning the supernatural. And whilst it has 
been and still is denied, years of research and study 
of all the heathen systems of religion and of philos- 
ophy show that in their highest and original types 
they recognize the supernatural. Thus the struggle 
has continued with the speculative idea of God, 
human conceptions, philosophy, and traditions on 
the one hand and Revelation and clear conceptions 
of the nature, character, attributes, and purposes of 
God on the other ; showing that God is love and a 
Father to man, and all the blessed results of this 
kind of teaching. On the other hand, all the 
heathen conceptions of God from Babel show the 
fear of the gods and unholy character of divinity. 
And all classes and systems can be reduced to these 
two principles from the beginning. 

Thus have developed two distinct forms of gov- 
ernment and of citizenship which have been the 
underlying cause of almost all the great wars of 
history. Whilst this is a new idea advanced by the 
author, he has given it careful research. This can 
be verified both directly and indirectly. Thus the 
ages have been spent in religious conflict, until in 
this tw^entieth century, the Christian idea of God 



30 Reason, History, and Religion. 

and its consequent beautiful elements of character 
and civilization have gained the supremacy forever. 
Infidelity and skepticism have practically been 
silenced, certainly from public discussion. All of 
the old philosophies which once ruled the world 
have lost their power ; and the ancient systems of 
religion, with their many gods and superstitions, 
are crumbling to pieces like the ancient cities and 
civilizations founded upon them. The sites of the 
great nations and cities of antiquity are only mounds 
of dust, debris, and piles of ruined temples, altars, 
shrines, and broken gods. The silent heaps of dust 
and clay in awful grandeur crown the victories of 
the truth and of the divine Word and prophecies of 
the Eternal God of truth and righteousness. Chris- 
tianity, in her onward march down the centuries 
since the dawn of the Christian Era, already rules 
over more than half the world ; and is increasing 
in power and influence with marvelous rapidity. 
She holds the balance of power in the most mighty 
modern nations. In the United States, with a pop- 
ulation of over 76,000,000, she has a communicant 
membership of 29,000,000. Allowing one-third 
for children would make every other citizen a Chris- 
tian. These are mighty historic facts taken from 
the most reliable sources. No one can deny these 
facts, and even according to skeptics or speculative 
philosophy and evolution, we have the ''survival 
of the fittest." Dividing the world into 85 govern- 
ments, 45 are Christian or under Christian control. 



The Supernatural — God. 31 

Taking the population of the world at 1,500,000,- 
000 ; 900,000,000 are under Christian government, 
and 400,000,000 are Christian. The languages of 
the Anglo-Saxon and Christian races have come to 
the lead. The English language is spoken by 
120,000,000, and the German by 76,000,000. These 
facts speak volumes to scholars. One hundred 
years ago the English was fifteenth, and now it 
leads the Christian languages ; and this countr\' 
which was conceived, born, and developed upon 
Christian principles, leads the nations of the world 
in all that makes nations and civilization strong 
and great. Even the Chinese and Japanese attribute 
this prosperity to our religion. The Christian 
Bible is translated into nearly 500 languages and 
has a circulation of almost 500,000,000 copies, and 
thus leads all the sacred books and books of the 
world. These are oTreat encourao-ements to Chris- 
tians as the result of the contact of ages, and unan- 
swerable arguments to speculative philosophers and 
skeptics. 

God — Origin of the Idea. — '' The word continues 
to be used with a wide latitude of meaning. The 
full conception associated with it by Christians is, 
of course, largely the product of Revelation. On 
the other hand, the general idea of God as a being 
upon whom man depends and to whom he is respon- 
sible, and for whose communion he longs, is innate 
in human nature, u <?., it is universally generated 
and sustained in human consciousness bv the laws 



32 Reason, History, and Religion. 

of nature. This fact is attributed by some to a 
God-consciousness ; by others to an immediate knowl- 
edge or direct intuition of God ; and by others to a 
constitutional tendency or impulse, or an innate 
religious sentiment or instinct. It bears all the 
marks of an intuitive truth or first principle of 
reason, e. g.^ universality and necessity, since it re- 
appears and persists in all normal conditions of 
consciousness. This general idea of God, native to 
the human soul, has been molded into various forms 
by tradition and speculation, and perfected by 
Revelation." 

" In consequence of the predominance of Chris- 
tian ideas in the literature of civilized nations for 
the last eighteen centuries, the word God has 
attained the permanent and definite sense of a Self- 
existent, Eternal, and absolutely perfect free personal 
Spirit, distinct from and sovereign over the world 
He has created." — A. A. Hodge ^ Benj. B. Warfield^ 
in Johnson's Universal CyclopcBdia. 

'^ Although the existence of God is the most cer- 
tain of all facts for Christians and religious people 
generally, and although all moral and religious life 
depends on Him for its motives and aims, yet Chris- 
tian theologians of every period have agreed that it 
is impossible to give an exhaustive definition of 
His being. This is due to the fact that God neither 
stands in a relation such as exists between genus 
and species, nor can be included in a class with 
other persons under a single genus. Yet all sys- 



The Supematriral— G-od. 33 

terns of religion have had positive notions of deity. 
Common to all has been the idea that He is a be- 
ing superior to man and nature, and controls, to 
some extent, man's destiny. His will, which is 
regarded in the lowest religions as despotic and 
arbitrar}-, is defined in the higher religions as 
almight}', originating and controlling all things. 
Speculative thought takes a step higher when it 
represents this will, upon which all depends, as 
unconditioned by anything outside itself, and eter- 
nal. But it remains for the Christian Revelation 
to add the most important feature, namely : that 
God is a moral being, absolutely good, and guiding 
the world to a perfect consummation.-' — Kostliii^ 
in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopcedia. 

The name or word for God is found in some form 
in all religions, peoples, and languages. There is 
great similarity in the names for God and gods, 
showing one common idea and derivation. This is 
a strong e\idence of oneness of worship in histon.- 
and the universality of belief in the supernatural, in 
God. Whilst there is naturally a diversity' of ideas 
and conceptions of divinity-, they all have the super- 
natural conception of God, the relation of divinity 
to human affairs, and the power to aid or punish. 
Making allowance for peculiarities of language 
there is a remarkable relation which the word in 
different languages sustains in one to the other. 

The word God has a double root or source of 
derivation ; meaning to shine, and to breathe. 



34 Reason, History, and Religion. 

From the one idea, we have sun- and fire-worship, 
perhaps originating from the sign of the presence 
of God to Moses in the burning bush in Midian. 
From that, to breathe, we have the idea of soul and 
the spiritual in God and in religion. 

*' No heathen system ever embodied the true 
conception of God ; the highest conception of the 
best human systems of philosophy, such as Plato's, 
needs to be supplemented by Revelation." 

We give below the word for God in a number of 
languages, to illustrate and prove the relation of 
the term for God : 

1. Allah — Arabic. 

2. Alah — Syrian. 

3. Bel, Belus — Babylonian. 

4. Baal — Phoenician, Canaanitish. The Sun- 

god, a deity and worship of great antiquity. 

5. Deus — Latin. 

6. Dieu — French. 

7. Dios — Spanish. 

8. Deos — Portuguese. 

9. Theos, Zeus — Greek. 

10. Gud — Norwegian. 

11. Gott — German. 

12. God — English. 

13. Godi — Icelandish. Magistrate, Governor. 

14. On — Egyptian. Sun, light. An obelisk 

erected to this god has been standing for 
perhaps 4000 years, one of the most re- 
nowned shrines in history. 



The Supernatural— G-od. 35 

15. Ra, Rah — Eg>'ptian. The sun. 

16. Jut, Dyut, Deva-s. Sanskrit. 

17. Gutha — Gothic. To shine. 

18. Dhuesos — Indo-European. Breath, Spirit. 

Ghuto-m. called upon, invoked. 

19. Jih — Japanese. The Sun. Jippun, the na- 

tion whose origin is the sun. 

20. Jah, Jehovah — Hebrew. The Covenant- 

keeping, Self-existent God. 

There is more evidence for the existence of a 
Creator than against it. Man must either believe 
that the world was created by a divine, infinite, and 
supreme being, or he must disbelieve it. That is 
a common-sense proposition. Either side of this 
question presents difficulties too numerous to dis- 
cuss in detail, and our purpose now is to state and 
briefly discuss general propositions. This is the 
first and fundamental one, which regulates all the 
rest. If man believes in a Creator the way is then 
open for all that follows in the Christian faith. 
A Revelation, and a Saviour, and all the Bible 
account, is so reasonable and so natural that the 
skeptic or unbeliever must meet at once this first 
and great fundamental proposition. Now what are 
we going to do about it? God or chance, purpose 
or accident, mind, thought, plan, or blind matter 
and nature working out a great purpose. We have 
mind already, and a spiritual nature or existence. 
So we need not argue that, for all must acknowl- 



36 Reason, History, and Religion. 

edge its presence. The fact that it is beyond us 
and above us, and presents the most profound mys- 
teries rather argues for a supreme mind over all 
than against it. Man has mind, and animal has in- 
stinct — a sort of inferior mental action or perception, 
call it what you will — but both are so far above 
matter in itself that there is no conceivable con- 
nection, although one exists in the other, as a house 
or frame, which are separated at death. In all 
man's mental, spiritual, and physical nature, as well 
as in all the laws of nature, there are such marvel- 
ous evidences of law, order, purpose, supreme con- 
ception, such greatness of purpose, plan, and adap- 
tation, that man can in centuries hardly fathom 
them after he has seen the workings and presence 
of them. In a history of not less than six thou- 
sand years there has been no evidence that a single 
instance, as the product of evolution or any other 
theory advanced by some scientists, that what we 
see and know is simply the working out of a natural 
law, has been found ; we say there has been no 
evidence that such has occurred in the smallest 
degree in all this time. Hence, that is a powerful 
argument that this is not the history of the pres- 
ence of these things. Without a supreme Creator 
as great a mystery hangs over the creation and of 
historic man as ever. The moment a Creator is 
acknowledged all these things disappear, and the 
general solution is complete, though all its work-, 
ings may still be attended by mystery in detail. 



The Supernatural— God. 37 

The Bible, of course, treats of these things, and in 
a way satisfactory to millions of the most intelli- 
gent class of people and scholars, but we are not 
citing the witness of the Bible now. 

The world in history has been religious. A great 
fact is that history shows that all the old historic 
nations believed in the supernatural in some way, 
and all the greatest philosophers and teachers or 
leaders of thought in all the ages, such as Zoroaster 
(Persian, Parsee), who believed in one God, and who 
dates about one thousand years before the Christian 
Era, at least to pre-historic times. So we start there. 
Then Brahma and Buddha, Confucius, and the 
Greek and Roman philosophers, Aristotle, Socrates, 
Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, all these taught or 
believed in the gods and their power over man, 
wind and wave, and the land, that they had power 
over destiny. So that, as a matter of history as 
well as common sense, the consensus of the thought 
of the world and nations has been that there is 
more evidence of divinity than against it. A belief 
in the supernatural is an acknowledgment of God 
or of a Creator. There is only a difference in terms, 
names, or titles. Only the details to be worked 
out — the principle is accepted. There is much 
so-called wise talk these days, claiming science as a 
shield, that has no sense in it. Premier Gladstone, 
England's greatest statesman, said that in an inti- 
mate experience with the world's greatest scientists, 
covering a period of fifty years in public life, twen- 



38 Reason, History, and Religion. 

ty-five to one believed in the Bible and its God. 
When the citizens of Athens, the center of the 
scholarship and learning of Greece and Greek phi- 
losophy, erected an altar to the " Unknown God," 
it was a practical recognition of the Creator of the 
universe, and Paul was admitted to the greatest 
court of the world, that of Areopagus, Mars' Hill, 
to discourse upon the subject of religion, he him- 
self being a representative of the belief in one God 
(monotheism) as against the belief in many gods 
(polytheism). The excavations and discoveries 
made in the countries of the East show conclusively 
that all the great nations of antiquity were relig- 
ious, the Pharaohs of Egypt taking their royal 
title from the sun-god, Ra, and the ancient kings 
and rulers in their dynasties. This was true of the 
Assyrians and Babylonians. Thus we find the 
name Bel, or Baal, and other names of the principal 
deities forming a part of the name royal. The 
kings of Assyria and Babylon erected temples and 
shrines to their gods and gloried in doing it. Aga- 
memnon, leader of the Greek forces at the siege of 
Troy, consulted the oracle at the temple of Apollo at 
Delphi. The ancients consulted oracles on all im- 
portant affairs, whether public or private. The 
word " oracle " means prayer. 

Ivct us look at a few of the older and most impor- 
tant nations and their rulers. We will begin with 
Babylon, dating back to B. C. 2300, as it was about 
this time that Babylon attained great importance, 



The Supernatural— God. 39 

which resulted in the religious supremacy of the god 
to whom it was attributed. Babylon means " Gate 
of God," coming from an old word, Babilu. Marduk, 
the god of the city, became the national god. It 
also is associated with Bel, Baal — the sun. Take 
the name Pharaoh — the common title of the native 
kings of Egypt, one of the oldest and most enlight- 
ened nations of antiquity. The word Pharaoh — 
P-RA, or PH-RA — means the sun, the chief god of 
nature and power, the symbol of the oldest form of 
worship known. Take some of the names of the 
Assyrian kings, also one of the oldest and most 
powerful rulers of the ancient world. Sargon, who 
ruled more than seven hundred years before Christ. 
Sargon — " Prince of the Sun." Sennacherib — 
''The moon increases brothers." Shalmaneser — 
" Fire worshiper." All these were objects of na- 
ture worship, the oldest religion. Nebuchadnez- 
zar, the son and successor of the founder of the 
Babylonian kings, was the most powerful and illus- 
trious of all of them. His name, from Nebo, one of 
the Assyrian deities, signifies " May Nebo protect 
the crown," or, " Nebo is the protector against 
misfortune." Nebo, Bel, Baal, a chief divinity of 
the Phoenicians and Canaanitish nations. Then 
take the name given to Daniel by Nebuchadnezzar 
when Daniel was taken captive and carried to Baby- 
lon — Belteshazzar, which meant " Bel's Prince," 
or " Bel, protect his life." Now between these an- 
cient nations and those more modern, connecting 



40 Reason, History, and Religion. 

the race of Chinese and Koreans, we have the 
Japanese. They form a sort of connecting link. 
Japan — Jip-pun, Jip, sun, and Pun, rise or origin. 
The land of the sun worshipers, or the country 
which had its origin in or by the power or protec- 
tion of the sun-god. The term Mikado simply 
means "gate of the Imperial palace." The Emperor 
is called the " sun of heaven," with the idea of the 
sun, moon, and natiire gods. This is the connect- 
ing link of all. Besides the word Jip or Jih — sun, 
is almost identical with the Hebrew word Jah — for 
God, Jehovah. These form very interesting studies, 
and weeks of research can be told in a few words. 
The Japanese real religion is Shinto — " the way of 
the gods." 

We cite these instances historically to prove our 
position that the world, by nations and peoples, 
always was and is religious. In the strict sense, 
these older nations were more religious than the 
modern. It, however, is true that all modern rulers 
take the religious oath of obligation. In our own 
country. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, David J. Brewer, in a course of 
three lectures before the students of Harvard Col- 
lege (1905), selected as his subject, "The United 
States, a Christian Nation." He shows, in deci- 
sions of our courts, Superior and Common, as well 
as in acts of Congress, from the earliest dates, the 
fact that we have been a Christian nation as recog- 
nized in law from our earliest history. The same 



The Supernatural— God. 41 

has been true of the world. Every student of his- 
tory knows that religion has sustained the closest 
possible relation to national affairs in all the ages. 
The greatest convocations and the bloodiest wars 
have been for religious conquest. No matter how 
much it may be denied by some, the facts of history 
undeniably show that the world has always been 
religious, whatever that religion may have been, 
and the world has always believed in the super- 
natural, even manifest in the strange belief of the 
transmigration of souls or spirits. This establishes 
our point, that the testimony of the historic world 
has been that there is more evidence favoring a be- 
lief in the supernatural, a Supreme Ruler of the 
universe, in short, a God, a Creator, than against it. 



CHAPTER III. 

REVELATION. 

T)AUL declares two great facts : first, that all 
^ Scripture or the sacred writings which consti- 
tute the Bible are given by the Spirit of God ; and 
second, that they were given for the great purpose of 
benefiting man in directing his life so that it might 
be equipped for efficient service in a life of righteous- 
ness, which is man's highest attainment. This is 
a great truth ; the value of the Sacred Word as a 
moral code and as a system of ethics and as a 
foundation for the building up of character and good 
citizenship has been universally recognized and ad- 
mitted. None have been higher in their commen- 
dation than modern Japanese priests and Chinese 
statesmen. Its superiority over ancient philosophy 
and mythology, and the life of Christ as the ideal 
life over and above all examples of human life, 
have been admitted by all teachers. Only con- 
tested was the point, was it divine or human in its 
highest state, centuries in advance of its environ- 
ments? Thus Christians and skeptics have dis- 
cussed divinity. But is not that divine which is 
supernatural ? And what is supernatural, but that 
which is infinitely above and in advance of matter 

(42) 



Revelation. 43 

and nature and humanity ? Everything we know 
reaches backward to that which has conceived and 
caused it. The Word itself declares that man was 
created in the likeness and image of his Maker, 
hence that view only accords with Scripture itself. 
Revelation is reasonable and contains the evi- 
dence of inspiration and divine authenticity in it- 
self. It is true that in the six thousand years of 
man's existence, with all the wonderful and marvel- 
ous advance in knowledge, science, discovery, and 
invention, man has approached no nearer to divinity. 
Nor have literature, thought, or beauty of life 
attained any marked approach to the ideal of 
Revelation. These are great, and, in our opinion, 
unanswerable facts. The evidences of infinite wis- 
dom, plan, forethought, marvelous laws in nature 
all working to an end, are so numerous and striking 
that they force upon the mind constantly the super- 
natural — the Supreme Ruler and Creator. In this 
belief the world has historically well nigh been 
universal. Revelation has been the clearest and 
wisest guide to the scientist in observing and in 
discerning these laws and workings of nature. 
These things are manifest to the most untrained 
eye and intellect ; they cannot be denied. Then the 
presence of man himself, in all the wonders of his 
capabilities and powers, and above all, with his 
mental and spiritual nature, are apparent to all. 
Here are facts and realities which cannot be ex- 
plained away, denied ; or accounted for outside of 



44 Reason, History, and Religion. 

Revelation. Then man's higher and nobler aspira- 
tions and spiritual breathings, and particularly his 
wonderful desire for preservation and continued 
existence after death. His unabated interest as a 
matter of history to know the future. This has 
been the great desire of all peoples in all ages. 

Then man's utter inability to solve these problems 
in thousands of years apart from Revelation. No 
purely human book has ever even made the attempt. 
Hence man's natural desire and expectation of a 
communication from the higher to his lower plane 
and his exalted opinion of anything that claimed to 
be such communication. Now when you have all 
these evidences of a Supreme Ruler on the one hand, 
man and his wonderful environments on the other, 
coupled with his great desire to communicate with 
the unknown ; his natural feeling that he in some 
way bears a relation to these things above and 
around him ; the fact that his past, present, and 
future make to him the burning questions of all 
questions : his intense desire to know his origin, 
destiny, the cause of the presence of evil amongst 
the good, which has been so universally recognized 
that almost all ancient nations believed in an evil 
god as well as in a god that was good ; I say that 
when you take into consideration all these facts, a 
communication or revelation from the infinite to 
the finite, or from the supernatural to the natural, is 
the most reasonable and natural thing in all the 
world. And that this revelation should be in accord 



Revelation. 45 

in its wisdom and mystery, with its surroundings, 
is also reasonable and natural. That is, that the 
revelation should be as far above man as his en- 
vironments would naturally suggest or indicate. It 
does not accord with reason that man should exist 
in such a marvelous state with a soul or spiritual 
nature and know nothing of its origin, nature, needs, 
or destiny. Now in brief, the Revelation come 
from God, perfectly and most satisfactorily meets 
all the requirements in this matter. It is not 
reasonable nor satisfactory that man should be here 
as he is and be in utter ignorance of the questions 
which are over all the most important to him. 
Without the Word of God, Revelation, the Bible, 
this would be the situation. Now the Bible claims 
to be the revealed will of God. It claims to be 
inspired ; that is, to have been given to men to 
write by the Spirit of God, thus communicated by 
God to men. And it bears this impress upon and 
within itself. No other book is like it, and none 
has had such influence upon men. It treats of the 
creation, the origin of all things, it explains the 
presence of good and evil, and reveals to man his 
destiny and his relation to his surroundings and to 
the Supreme Ruler and Author of the universe. It 
was 1600 years in preparation and contains sixty-six 
books. It was written by forty-four different 
writers, located in different places, and separated by 
centuries in time, and yet in its treatment of the 
most intricate and sublime subjects, it forms only 



46 Reason, History, and Religion. 

one book and each part sustains the rest without 
contradiction. All the discoveries and developments 
of ages have neither discredited this book nor ad- 
vanced upon it. This is the most wonderful testi- 
mony the world ever knew. 

Revelation and History. — Religion is as old as 
the human race ; hence, religion has a history. So 
we find that the world has in its history of nations 
and peoples always believed in a communication 
with the supernatural, whatever that communica- 
tion may have been. No matter how clouded in 
superstition and philosophy, tradition, or pure mys- 
tery, it still has believed in the presence of the in- 
fluence and power of the supernatural and in the 
relation which one sustained to the other. 

The numerous shrines, altars, temples, priests, 
and religious rites practiced by the nations of an- 
tiquity attest that. Sacred books and places, or 
oral communications or oracles, have always been 
an important part in history. No nation has been 
entirely without these. And they were always as- 
sociated with the supernatural, either direct or 
indirect. Among the sacred books of the world 
are the Zend Avesta of the Persians, the Peniten- 
tial Psalms of the Babylonians, the Vedas of India, 
the Books of the King of China, the Teachings of 
Confucius, histories of the gods of Egypt, mytho- 
logical records, Greek and Roman writings, the 
Koran of Mohammed, and others. Egyptians, Bab}'- 
lonians, Assyrians, Persians, Hindus, and Chinese 



Revelation. 47 

had their sacred records. Some of the most inter- 
esting and imaginative writings of all history are 
here found. 

These sacred places and sacred books in all his- 
tory and among all nations and peoples exercised 
the greatest possible influence upon the people of 
the highest as well as of the lowest classes. Noth- 
ing could so mightily influence or move the people 
as the will of the gods. Among all the people, the 
priests and the oracles exercised the greatest influ- 
ence. The world historically has believed in 
Revelation. Another important fact is that almost 
all the special things stated in divine Revelation 
find their counterpart in the histories or traditions 
of the ancient nations. The Egyptians had their 
religious ark, after the ark of Moses. So there is 
the sacred ship, and the bird, and the letters NOB, 
for Noah, found in the ancient nations' accounts 
of the flood. The fish-god, the miraculous birth of 
Christ, finds its similar story in marked respects in 
the birth of Buddha of China, and dating to within 
a century of the prophecy of Isaiah concerning 
Christ. Some men say that these things in the 
Bible are beyond reason. How is it, then, that so 
many nations believed in similar accounts, with 
this distinction, that they were clouded with super- 
stition and imagination? So the Mohammedan 
has his Koran. In fact, no known religion has 
ever existed that has not in history been associated 
with some idea of communication with the deities. 



48 Reason, History, and Religion. 

We have the call of Moses at the burning bush in 
Midian, and then fire as a symbol of divinity, and 
many a fish decorated the spire of the older 
churches as indicator of the direction of the wind. 
The fish-god had the upper part man or woman 
and the lower part fish, with the tradition that a 
fish carried a man to the shores of a country and 
the man taught them agriculture. So Jonah went 
to Nineveh after being cast by the fish upon the 
land. 

Millions have accepted the account of Revelation 
and believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of 
God revealed to men. Those who claim not to ac- 
cept it have nothing to offer in its place, and are 
still in absolute darkness as to their origin, destiny, 
and all the interest and longings of man's spiritual 
nature. Of all conceivable states or conditions, 
this is the worst and most unsatisfactory of all to 
be in. Not only is Revelation reasonable, and 
bearing the divine impress of inspiration, but it is 
wonderful in the comfort and satisfaction it imparts, 
and marvelous in the life it teaches and "sustains. 
No book has its circulation, 500,000,000 copies 
in over 500 languages, and has the respect and 
reverence of the millions of the best and most in- 
telligent classes of people in the world, and for 
several thousand years. This Revelation, which 
is the Bible, must either be believed or disbelieved, 
either accepted or accounted for. It is clear what 
is the most reasonable thing to do. Nothing has 



Revelation. 49 

ever been able to overcome the influence of this 
book, neither fire, flood, sword, nor persecution. It 
has proved itself to be essential to man's present 
and eternal happiness. 

The Bible has been accepted as the divinely-in- 
spired Word of the only one and true God, as the 
All-wise Creator and Ruler of the Universe, by 
400,000,000 of people. These people compose the 
mightiest nations of the earth, such as Germany, 
England, and America, all of which historically 
are Christian nations, and all of whose rulers take 
the oath of office in the fear of God Almighty as 
the King of kings and the Lord of lords. These 
nations in lands believing in the Bible have at- 
tained the highest state of civilization, prosperity, 
liberty, and happiness. Even the heathen nations, 
in their modern writings or addresses, attribute this 
to our God and our religion ; and even in India 
they are introducing much of our religious system 
into theirs. These are undeniable facts of history, 
and are far-reaching in their lessons to Christians 
and unbelievers alike. The noblest acts, and the 
most blessed spirit here prevail. Here, and here 
alone, do we have the two great principles of the 
" Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man." 
These principles have done more to bring the peace 
of the world, international intercourse, and the 
general uplift of humanity than anything else ; and 
they are the principles of Revelation, taught in no 
other land or among no other people. The Bible 



50 Reason, History, and Religion. 

has more followers than any other book or system 
of principles ever taught. The most enlightened 
people, statesmen, scientists, and philosophers alike 
have been its devoted followers and adherents. In 
view of all these facts, it must be accepted as the 
Word of God, and its principles as those to be 
accepted by all men and women of the world. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE I.IFK OF FAITH AND THE UFE OF DOUBT. 

\ X ^E have considered the existence of God, and 
^ ^ Revelation. We now'^'come'to the state or 
life of faith contrasted with that of doubt or skepti- 
cism. Which accords most with reason and history 
and with our own mental and spiritual nature? 
Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Hebrews, " that 
by faith we understand that the worlds have been 
framed by the Word of God " ; that is, the heavens 
and the earth. He means to say that nineteen 
hundred years ago, and indeed as far back as the 
knowledge of man goes, the only knowledge men 
have had of the creation is by the faith they have 
in the account given by Moses, the man of God, 
who claimed to have spoken by divine inspiration. 
That was true then and it is still true now. Man 
has not approached any nearer to the solution of 
these problems, purely by science, reason, experi- 
ment, or discovery. 

First, Faith is more Reasonable and Natural to 
Man than Doubt. Man is naturally inclined to 
believe — whatever doubt he has in his nature is the 
result of the fall from his first estate. It is more 
natural to believe than to disbelieve, besides the 

(51) 



52 Reason, History, and Religion. 

education and satisfaction a life of faith imparts. 
Paul starts at the beginning, at the creation of the 
world, when he says that by faith we comprehend 
that the worlds have been framed. We find all 
these things here : the heavens and the earth, man, 
animals, growth, laws, principles, life, and death. 
We cannot in reason disbelieve in their presence. 
They are infinitely beyond us. We of ourselves 
cannot account for them. It is infinitely more 
reasonable to accept a reasonable account given of 
their origin than to dismiss it, without any other, 
and live in complete ignorance. Man naturally 
and reasonably takes profound satisfaction in hav- 
ing a definite solution of the problems of life and 
existence in which he can believe, and which cen- 
turies in all their witness and testimony affirm. 
Man sees and takes knowledge of his surroundings. 
He must either believe or disbelieve them. Faith 
in what he learns, sees, hears, and observes satisfies 
his own nature and desire, whilst doubt increases 
his anxiety. He naturally inclines to believe and 
wants to believe. We have had the existence of 
the supernatural. We now come to man's part and 
duty in relation to these things. All men and 
women have believed in something ; when there 
was no substantial testimony to accept, they accepted 
that which was nearest to them. They believe in 
what is manifest to the eye, the ear, smell, taste, and 
touch. Religion, faith, simply rises a step higher 
and believes in the supernatural, which is the first 



The Life of Faith and the Life of Doubt. 53 

cause and the power of the phenomena, which is 
manifest and discernible. There is abundant evi- 
dence of existence above and beyond that which is 
knowable merely to the outward senses. Man has 
a spiritual sense as clear and reliable as his sight. 
The inner life is as real as the outer. Internal 
things are as real as external things. All the great 
scientists and philosophers recognized this. Man 
is not limited in his perception, impressions, and 
ideas, merely to the domain of the visible, material, 
or the senses. Man has a mental and spiritual dis- 
cernment, that which lies in the realm or domain 
of his soul, where he is also cognizant of the presence 
of realities. The greatest skeptic philosophers 
have admitted that from Kant on down. Man has 
full evidence of a life inner as well as outer. His 
internal evidences are as manifest to him as his 
external, and he is as sure of them. All history 
proves this. The man who inclines to doubt is 
the exception in human nature, peculiar, separating, 
unsocial, retiring, and unpopular amongst men ; his 
company and counsel are not sought nor desired. 
In this discussion, we now face the results of a life 
of faith and of doubt. lyife is made up of results 
and fruit. It is not a question in life, of labor, 
sacrifice, or of cost. The great question is, to what 
does the life lead ? What is attained, what are the 
results? All things lead to an end. What have 
been the fruits of unbelief, agnosticism, skepticism, 
doubt, and of infidelity ? One of the best tests is. 



54 Reason, History, and Religion. 

the product. What have been the results of doubt, 
skepticism, evolution, reason, philosophy, based on 
these as opposed to faith and Revelation ? Have 
they, combined, given to society and the race any 
great uplift ? We ask these questions as these sub- 
jects have been related to morals and religion and 
citizenship : not in the scientific achievements of 
some of their supporters, which is a separate subject. 
Have these deductions or claims or discussions been 
greatly beneficial to men and morals — that is, a 
fair measure of them ? How do the lives of the 
majority of their authors compare with the great 
defenders of the faith ? Many good and wise things 
have been brought to the surface by some of them. 
They have declared some seemingly wise theories, 
but in practice, these have degenerated and led men 
and nations into a state of stoicism that has been 
degrading and impure. The life of doubt is one of 
unhappiness and dissatisfaction to all its followers. 
In no age of the world did it prove satisfactory to 
any large class of adherents. It always, and even 
under its greatest founders and promoters, still left 
the greatest question unanswered. No approach, 
no advance upon this basis to clearer light, has been 
made in ages. The life of faith at once clears up 
all these and satisfies the man's inner life as well as 
his natural life. Doubt ends in uncertainty, dread, 
and fear. The most ardent Epicurean or Stoic 
could not free himself from these, and the result 
was impurity. The wisest sayings and teachers 



The Life of Faith and the Life of Doubt. 55 

always approached a state of faith and of belief. 
Everything around and about us is real, has its sub- 
stance or substantial existence, the foundation upon 
which it rests, and man cannot disbelieve the exist- 
ence of these things, nor can he in reason disbelieve 
that their origin is not as real and intelligent in its 
first cause as the results by which he is surrounded. 
Here are conclusions from which the greatest can- 
not free himself, even though he may desire. The 
first thing in the child-life is faith, even before it 
knows what faith is. Agnosticism, which in fact 
is the root and term for all unbelief, claims to know 
nothing beyond the phenomena of the senses, but it 
does not deny that there is something beyond the 
knowable. Such a confession is destructive and 
fatal to all its deductions. In its highest philosophy 
it acknowledges the existence of the infinite or un- 
knowable. What follies these things are. As a 
student we have often wondered how such otherwise 
great minds can so err on moral questions. But a 
study of their lives reveals the secret. Hume, Her- 
bert Spencer, Darwin, and even Voltaire and Rous- 
seau acknowledge the supernatural or that which is 
higher than all known. Faith recognizes this as 
God and accepts the statements of Revelation con- 
cerning it. All these great leaders of skepticism 
have failed to furnish any explanation satisfactory 
of what they do not accept in Revelation. Hence 
they leave all in doubt, that state of all most un- 
satisfactory to man and in the light of Revelation 



56 Reason, History, and Religion. 

and human apprehension the most unreasonable. 
The life of unbelief is stolid, cold, despondent, 
hopeless, unhappy, and gloomy. The life of faith 
is full of promise, hope, and the clearest sunlight 
shines all along its entire path. It brings people 
into the closest and most delightful relations, opens 
the nations of the world to each other, and secures 
its peace and prosperity. Hence the life of faith is 
in all respects the most reasonable, natural, and the 
only desirable life to live. 

Second, History and Faith. Herzog and Schaff's 
Bncyclopsedia says : " All personal relations in hu- 
man life rest on faith." Strictly speaking, there is 
no such thing, and never has been, historically, as 
a life of strict unbelief. The world has always be- 
lieved and always exercised faith, both in God or 
the gods, and in man. The world has always be- 
lieved in the favor of the gods, in faith, religion, 
and in worship. The discovery of lands, the found- 
ing of governments, the framing of laws, the build- 
ing of cities and of homes, all rest upon belief or 
faith. It is a remarkable fact that all the great 
philosophers, such as Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, 
believed in a supreme God and in a pure life. And 
whilst this belief was mixed with philosophy and 
tradition, yet because of this faith they were in 
many respects actually calculated in their teaching 
to prepare the world in thought for the coming of 
Jesus Christ and His Gospel. The world has never 
historically been a doubting world, nor skeptical in 



The Life of Faith and the Life of Doubt, 57 

its histor>\ As already stated, the greatest scien- 
tists and philosophers, as even the founders of 
Agnosticism and Skepticism, acknowledged that 
which was beyond the human domain and passed 
into the supernatural — at least that the unknown 
was present, as in Athens their altar declared in 
Paul's time. 

The question of faith has entered into all life. 
No solution outside that of faith has reached the 
first cause. In the interim between the Old Testa- 
ment Revelation and that of the New Testament 
Revelation, a period of some five hundred years, the 
great philosophers lived — Epicureans, Stoics, Aris- 
totle, Socrates, Plato, the Greek and Roman philoso- 
phers. This was the greatest period of the world 
in producing great teachers and philosophers out- 
side of the Bible. What was the character of this 
period ? Let any student of history" answer. Was 
the world wiser, purer, and happier then ? When 
Christ came the teaching of these great philoso- 
phers had faded and passed into a state of Stoic, 
Epicurean, Agnostic, and Skeptical impurity and 
indifference upon all true life. Thus, Christ found 
the result of this teaching, when, according to the 
Bible, He came to turn the world to God and the 
true life of faith. Hence the great question : 
*' When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith 
on the earth ? " The weight of these facts must 
force themselves upon the mind of the thoughtful 
and truthful student of history. Christ taught faith 



58 Reason, History, and Religion. 

in God and faith in men. He revived the life of 
purity, hope, and morals, and it was the dawn of a 
new era, the glory of which has brightened with 
the advance of nineteen centuries, and the civiliza- 
tion of which has won the admiration of the world. 
The world has not been a doubting world, nor has 
it in its great and final conflict of religion, thought, 
and philosophy been led by the spirit of doubt or 
skepticism. Faith has won the battle of the world 
and planted the banner of faith upon the broken 
walls of the old and modern philosophies, all of 
which may be properly classed as Agnosticism (un- 
knowing). We are now living in the greatest 
period of the world. In progress, in science, in 
knowledge, and in all that makes nations and indi- 
viduals great, and we are living in an age when 
faith has silenced her enemies, ancient and modern, 
and has developed the greatest period of faith in 
the history of the world in thought and worship. 
Way back in the days of Babylon the great, 
when the greatest king ascended the throne he 
took the name Nebuchadnezzar, " Nebo, protect the 
crown." And now, in this greatest of all ages of 
civilization, science, and truth and national charac- 
ter, we find that the greatest nations are nations 
of faith as manifest in their mottoes : England — 
" God save the king ; " Germany — " Gott mit uns " 
(God with us) ; and our own beloved United States 
of America — " In God we trust." These are not 
accidents nor the result of a moment of sensation 



The Life of Faith and the Life of Doubt. 59 

or enthusiastic emotion ; they are the hardwrought 
fruit of centuries of contact with civilization, 
philosophy, doubt, and faith. They are the ensigns 
of the victories of faith in the ages of history. 
The world has not been a doubting world, nor 
followers of infidels and of skeptics. The highest 
classes of civilization who have molded thought 
and life have turned away from these. The 
great masses of men and women have believed in 
God and in man both. In the religious conflict of 
the world, the Christians as the children of faith 
number in this twentieth century 400,000,000, and 
control in their governments 900,000,000, which is 
more than half the population of the globe, and 
here is centered the wealth, intelligence, progress, 
and morality of the world. If we were to speak of 
results in science, literature, invention, industries, 
benevolence, purity of morals, and all that makes 
character, all must agree that here we find its no- 
blest type. It must also be acknowledged that in 
all that makes character and true greatness. Agnos- 
ticism, Evolution, and Skepticism have left us little 
to imitate. All our corruption in morals and litera- 
ture has its foundation in unbelief. Our country and 
our church, the two grandest heritages in which all 
we have centers, are the gifts of our Anglo-Saxon and 
Puritan ancestors, who were the pioneers of faith. 
From Columbus to Plymouth Rock, and from 
Plymouth Rock to the Declaration of Independence, 
and from that historic time to our splendid country 



60 Reason, History, and Religion. 

whicli rules the world in character and influence in 
this twentieth century, all has been one unbroken 
line of faith. Each President of the United States 
has had faith in God, the Bible, and has had respect 
for the Sabbath and the house of God. From the Con- 
tinental Congress to the present, all our laws have re- 
spected and regarded our religious history and our 
faith. Here is the secret of our splendid citizenship 
and of our unequaled liberty and freedom of thought. 
Our ancestors, as the pioneers of faith, were the 
founders of civil and religious liberty. In short, 
we owe all we have and are as a nation and as in- 
dividuals to faith, and nothing to doubt. If we 
were to speak as a final word of the direct influence 
upon the development of character and citizenship 
upon youth and manhood, as to the effects of skep- 
ticism or common doubt, and that of faith and 
religion, there would be only one side to the ques- 
tion. Historically speaking, the world's ideal, after 
which all the nations of antiquity sought, was a 
pure reliable system of belief and of faith, upon 
which to face the unknown world. A careful sys- 
tematic study of all the religious thought and phi- 
losophy of antiquity reveals this fact. Something 
which could be confided in and which would be a 
pillar of faith for the inquiring, anxious soul of 
man. This condition is a great historical world- 
wide fact. To meet this want all the greatest 
teachers and philosophers bent their wisdom from 
thirty centuries before Christ to His coming. It 



The Life of Faith and the Life of Doubt. 61 

never was satisfactorily determined until the an- 
swer was given in Revelation, and especially from 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No one can question 
the beauty of the life of faith, and no one can ques- 
tion the satisfaction of it, and surely it is more 
reasonable and accords more with man's highest 
and noblest nature, to believe than to doubt. And 
as we have shown, the histor}- of the world proves 
that^ in all ages man was inclined to believe rather 
than to doubt. Now, in this twentieth centur}-, 
after 3600 years of faith in the Bible, and of nearly 
twenty ^centuries of witness to the truth of the Gos- 
pel, there is no room for doubt, and all should 
enjoy the faith which is divine and eternal. The 
life of faith accepts the Bible as the inspired 
Word of God, thus revealed and made known to 
the world, that it contains the only complete and 
authentic account of the creation and origin of all 
things and the destiny of man. Faith believes in the 
first state of man as holy, and in the fall from this 
state by disobedience, of the following of sin, and 
then in the final plan of redemption through the 
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as there 
set forth. This alone solves the problem of life. 
Hence the life of faith believes in the immortality 
of the soul, the mediatorial sacrifice of Christ, the 
justification of the believer through faith, and the 
final triumph over imperfection and all the ills in- 
cident to this life through sin and the attainment 
to the state of perfect blessedness to those who have 



62 Reason, History, and Religion. 

this faith, and the eternal dwelling with God and 
the ransomed, resulting in a glorious reunion in 
heaven with all who have believed. This is the 
glorious belief of the children of faith and the end 
to which it attains. It furnishes the only complete 
system of belief, founded on reason, history, and 
religion. It is not speculative nor imaginary ; it 
is established on the authenticated, revealed will of 
God. The impressions and lessons of nature, the 
ideas which spring from these and our own mental 
and spiritual being, of which Agnostics speak, find 
here, and here only, an outlet that satisfies and 
gives rest to man's conscience or moral faculty and 
accords with his highest conceptions and spiritual 
breathings, which every intelligent man and woman 
has. Speculative science and evolution are based 
partly on impressions and ideas, for which they 
find no origin nor goal. Hence they have no 
proper starting point, nor end to be attained. The 
life of faith builds on the rock foundation of re- 
vealed truth and aims at an eternal goal of blessed- 
ness, which rests on the assured promises of the 
revealed will and purposes of the Supreme Author 
of all things. Hence all the teachings of religion 
conform infinitely more with reason, history, man's 
intuitions and conceptions and comprehensions than 
with unbelief. There is not a single fact or evi- 
dence to disprove this faith, and all nature and 
Revelation support it. Then it satisfies and har- 
monizes with man's highest thought and aspiration. 



The Life of Faith and the Life of Doubt. 63 

The followers of faith are not building on sand, but 
upon the solid rock of truth, where they rest their 
hopes of eternal life, and offer them to the world 
rather than human speculation, which rests on 
nothing but human device and reaches no future. 
This faith not only accords w^th man's highest 
ideals and with history, but it is both natural and 
sublime. It encourages and improves all. It gives 
to life the grandest purpose and sublime anticipa- 
tion ; it inspires to the most heroic and noble effort. 
Hence we recommend it with all our heart and 
soul to the faithful consideration of all who realize 
the inner spiritual life, w^hich is the possession of 
all created human beings, and the most responsible 
trust committed to men. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SABBATH. 

^ I ''HE question of the Sabbath is not purely a 
-*- religious question. It is by no means limited 
to that phase of the subject, however important that 
may be. It is a question widening out to all phases 
of life, and is most intimately related to our national 
and social life, and to the business and industrial 
departments of our communities, and also our moral 
and educational interests. Man has a moral nature ; 
this nature must be safeguarded and protected by 
education and instruction. Character must be 
builded, and builded as it only can be, on moral 
principles : Love of home, country, industry, and 
virtue. These are psychologically related and in- 
separably connected with morals and character 
building. Even Chinese philosophy, under the in- 
fluence of Confucius, embodied these principles in 
its code of Ethics, as shown in their five cardinal 
principles of citizenship and duty, centuries before 
the Christian Era. First, the relations between 
Sovereign and his ministers. Second, the rela- 
tions between parents and children. Third, the 
relations between the elder and younger brother, or 
superior and inferior. Fourth, the relations be- 

(64) 



The Sabbath. 65 

tween husband and wife. Fifth, the relations 
between friend and friend. These are purely moral 
principles, and yet upon this basis, without a purely 
religious system, this largest nation of the world 
was successfully managed for nearly three thousand 
years, and the author of these principles, in a prac- 
tically heathen nation, was deified, and shrines and 
temples erected to him throughout the empire, and 
his virtues and life venerated. All the ancient his- 
toric nations, from Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Chal- 
dea, and Persia, to Greece and Rome, did the same. 
In their philosophy, poetry, national odes or hymns, 
and patriotic addresses to the people, they taught 
morality, or virtue, as a fundamental principle which 
must be elevated and exalted. Hence reverence for 
the gods and shrines and oracles, for sacred places 
and for the priests, was ever taught as a basis for 
good citizenship. They had sacred days and places 
in all these nations. Religion and morals are 
historic side by side with citizenship and civiliza- 
tion in all the great nations in the history of the 
world, as their records show, from the foundation of 
the world and the life of man. No nation has ever 
been known to history without its altar and code of 
morals. No matter how neglected in practice, they 
recognized a standard of morals in their philosophy 
or rites and ceremonies, and particularly in their 
sacred books and writings, where they were suffi- 
ciently intelligent to possess them. This is a won- 
derful testimony which no scholar or student of his- 



QQ Reason, History, and Religion. 

tory and archaeology can truthfully deny. The 
idea of the Sabbath is not only Jewish, Scriptural, 
and Christian ; other nations have had these days 
and periods of time. The division of the week and 
the number seven can be traced in the history and 
national life of many ancient nations. The weekly 
division of time is of very early origin. It was not 
an invention of the Hebrews, as seen from Josephus, 
Philo, Judseus, Clemens of Alexandria, and others. 
It was found as a civil institution in the very ear- 
liest times among the Hindus, Persians, Assyrians, 
and Egyptians. The Assyrians and Bg>^ptians ob- 
served the seventh day as a rest or recreation day. 
A remarkable fact is that the days of the week 
were named after the planets worshiped, as Sun-day, 
the day of the god of the Sun, and Moon-day, the 
day of the Moon god. In the " Herzog and Schaff 
Bncyclopsedia of Religious Knowledge," we find 
the following statements : " The institution of a 
weekly religious rest-day has existed, and its ob- 
servance been the subject of legislation from the 
very earliest times. Traces of such laws are found 
among the remains of Chaldean antiquity. The 
Assyrians had laws for the observance of their Sab- 
bath similar to those by which the Sabbath was 
maintained among the Jews." The Romans had 
special laws for the observance of the Sabbath. 
(Constantine, 321.) One of these laws read as fol- 
lows : " On the venerable day of the Sun, let all 
magistrates and people residing in the cities rest, and 



The Sabbath. 67 

let all workshops be closed." One of our latest and 
best Encyclopaedias (Johnson's, W. W. Atterbury), 
under the head, Sabbath, says : " The observance 
of a weekly rest-day is very widely held to have a 
natural basis in the consitution of man. The per- 
sistency with which such an institution has been 
maintained for many ages among Jews, Christians, 
Mohammedan, and even some pagan (heathen) na- 
tions, supports this view." In 1832 the British 
Parliament instituted a commission of inquiry, in 
which the testimony was taken of 641 medical 
men of London, and a great number of medical 
societies, physicians, physiologists, political econo- 
mists, and managers of industrial establishments, 
who united in their opinion as to the wisdom of 
one day in seven as rest-day. A rest-day without 
moral or religious instruction would be a detriment, 
and simply become a day of idleness. These 
signers of a petition took the position that the night 
did not fully supply the recuperation needed by the 
labor of the day, and that in addition to that, one- 
seventh of the time was necessary on scientific and 
healthful principles. The need of a weekly rest 
from daily toil appears also in the social nature 
and relations of man as a member of the family and 
state." The changes suggested in the doing away 
of the Sabbath would be contrary to all this un- 
broken line of history and testimony, and could 
only be attended by injurious results. During the 
French Revolution in France, the seven week days- 



68 Reason, History, and Religion. 

were changed to ten, and one-tenth of the time was 
devoted to rest, and this was found unsatisfactory, 
and Napoleon restored it. W. W. Atterbury, in 
Johnson's Encyclopaedia, in an article on the 
Sabbath, says : " The week of seven days may be 
traced to the dawn of human history, and it is 
probable that wherever the week existed it was 
marked by the observance of Sabbath or rest-days. 
A weekly Sabbath was known to the Semitic As- 
syrians and Babylonians, and it is claimed that the 
name ' Sabbattu ' is found in the inscriptions, where 
it is defined as 'a day of rest for the heart.' " It 
seems also to have been known to the Accado Sume- 
rians, the aboriginal inhabitants of Chaldea, and 
their equivalent term for Sabbath is explained to 
mean, "A day of completion of labor." How near 
these are to the Hebrew, Shabbath, rest, derived 
from Shabath, rest from labor. These corrobora- 
tive historical testimonies are not an accident ; 
they are far-reaching, showing that in all ages the 
highest types of civilization were a unit with refer- 
ence to a rest period, and days and seasons of ap- 
pointed worship ; hence they should be maintained. 
The New Encyclopaedia says : " The existing Sun- 
day laws rest chiefly upon the following grounds : 
the right of all classes, so far as practicable, to rest 
one day in seven ; the right to undisturbed worship 
on the day set apart for this purpose by the great 
majority of the people ; the decent respect which 
should be paid to the religious institutions of the 



The Sabbath. 69 

people, which, in the universal opinion of Chris- 
tians, depends upon the preservation of the original 
sanctity of the Sabbath, enforced by law." It must 
be remembered that Christians compose by far the 
largest as well as the most loyal and intelligent 
class of our citizenship, numbering, according to 
government statistics, 29,000,000 communicant 
members out of 76,000,000 of a population, not al- 
lowing for infants and small children, which com- 
pose a very large proportion of the population of 
all countries, and which are not enumerated in the 
Protestant church records. This gives us more than 
one-third of the population, and in the State of 
Pennsylvania, where the communicant membership 
is about 3,000,000, nearly one-half of the popula- 
tion, and more than one-half of the adult population. 
Hence, if there is one class of population in the 
state or nation entitled to some special legislation, 
it is the Christians. Yet the Sabbath laws are not 
defended nor asked on those grounds, fair and 
proper as they are, but are demanded, retained, on 
the broader ground of their historic and inherent 
connection with our government as essential to the 
education of law, order, and morals — a necessity to 
every state. The value to the state itself of the 
Sunday observance as a means toward that popular 
intelligence and morality on which all our free in- 
stitutions are conditioned, is incalculable. Thus 
we can trace the fact of a rest-day in legislative and 
legal enactment, as embodied in the laws of ancient 



70 Reason, History, and Religion. 

nations, for at least three thousand years, in those 
earlier periods of history which were far back of 
the splendid development and civilization of the 
twentieth century. Why, then, should we de- 
part from those historic marks of civilization which 
were anchored in the great historic nations of 
Egypt, Babylon, Chaldea, Persia, India, and later, 
Greece and Rome, and fundamental in the great 
Anglo-Saxon race, who are the founders of our 
present civilization ? In the early periods there was 
punishment for a violation of the Sabbath laws, 
under the Romans of disfranchisement as to the own- 
ership of property, and even of death. In some of 
even the ancient nations the Sabbath had besides a 
rest-day a distinct religious character, and in others 
that of rest only. Now there was a general con- 
sensus of sentiment as to the importance of such a 
day as related to citizenship, and even national as 
well as social life, or this would not be the fact of 
history. It is a wonderful testimony to the im- 
portance and absolute necessity of an institution 
which has such a wonderful history. This history 
is unparalleled. We have here the testimony of 
heathen, Jewish, and Christians, for a period of 
three thousand years, as to the benefits derived from 
this institution. Now it is retrograding and dan- 
gerous to strive to change such a law of universal 
life with the sanction of divinity and history for its 
support and observance. Then comes the question, 
Who are those who desire the change ? What are 



The Sabbath. 71 

the reasons and what is the object or purpose, and 
who are those who desire the institution to remain ? 
The answer to these questions may have decided 
bearing on determining the question. What are the 
kinds of citizenship for which they stand ? and how 
are they related to patriotism, morals, temperance, 
our country, and reform? The same names in 
our own State, which backed false registry and 
white slave traffic — vice in its worst forms — have 
been associated with robbing the state treasury 
and taxpayer, are identical with those who 
propose and support the change of our Sab- 
bath laws ; are those who belong to the liquor 
league, and are largely of the lower classes of the 
foreign population and who are Jnot in sympathy 
with our free institutions. The leaders have been 
associated with corruption, graft, and false registry 
and immorality. This is a most ungrateful and 
dangerous class. Who are those who are in favor 
of retaining and enforcing our present Sabbath 
laws ? They are all that splendid class of Chris- 
tian patriots, numbering millions, who have sought 
the common weal from the foundations of our gov- 
ernment, who stand for God, country, law, order, 
morality, virtue, honor, truth, temperance, purity, 
sanctity of the home and purity in society ; who 
uphold law and righteousness in governmental 
affairs. In short, they constitute the pillar and 
bulwark of our American Republic. This signifies 
much. It would be a lasting shame to deny this 



72 Reason, History, and Religion. 

class of citizens that only one thing for which they 
have asked in the national and state legislation 
and laws. It would be as unfair and unjust as it 
would be disastrous. Every true American is in 
favor of the Sabbath. It is false and a shame to 
lay this at the door of the workingman by declar- 
ing that the change of the Sabbath laws are de- 
signed to accommodate the laboring man. Nothing 
is more untrue. First, the laboring men as a class 
largely favor the Sabbath. It is, indeed, one of the 
greatest blessings of the laboring man — giving him 
a day with his home and family and much needed 
rest. Second, the men who make this declaration 
are not, as a rule, those who are much concerned 
about the laboring man making the highest possi- 
ble profit on his daily earnings. The laboring 
man is interested in the welfare of his children and 
favors the Sabbath, church, Sunday school, and 
morality. It is the drinking man, the immoral 
man, the pleasure seeker, those who care neither 
for God nor man, who oppose the Sabbath. Shall 
we hearken to these who strike at the very founda- 
tions of our free government and our free institu- 
tions ? The changes suggested are dangerous in their 
tendency to the entire Sabbath. Whilst that is de- 
nied, the truth is that these changes are far-reach- 
ing and they are intended to be. Results are sure 
to follow these changes. They lay the foundation 
for the practical overthrow of the Sabbath. They 
work in two ways. They destroy the general sane- 



The Sabbath. 73 

tity for the Sabbath, and educate to its desecration 
by sale and purchase on that day. The opening of 
little shops, ice cream parlors, parks with music, 
libraries, selling soft drinks, furnishing drink at 
hotels to guests, sale of soda water, legalizing sale 
of Sunday newspapers or the outcry concerning 
their sale, the general sale of milk, w^ithout limit of 
hours, opens wide the doors for the worst of tempta- 
tion to our youth, even whilst on their way to the 
sanctuary or Sunday school, furnishes at once the 
greatest possible obstacle in the way of bringing 
the negligent youth under the control of moral and 
religious education. It takes from our custom that 
one day when the moral element, for the common 
good, is endeavoring to lead the young and thought- 
less upward, in the ascent of the highest forms of 
manliness, character, and citizenship. The govern- 
ment, the home, and society cannot afford such a 
result. This day is recognized as a strong factor in 
cultivating our youth in the way of elevating 
thoughts, well formed habits and sterling character. 
The Sabbath is the one function which makes this 
possible and effective. A great principle is involved 
here. Changes have already been made under the 
pretext of interpreting what our fathers meant by 
acts of necessity and mercy. The results have not 
always been after the moral thought of the original 
law as in the mind and heart of our forefathers. 
Courts and law-makers of modern times are not 
always, by any means, qualified to interpret the di- 



74 Reason, History, and Religion. 

vine law and moral and educational statutes. The 
prestige of one hundred years of an unchanged Sab- 
bath law is of great importance. To stand that 
test in the growing and molding period of our 
country attests a wonderful sentiment in its favor. 
It is a recognition that it is a divine law, recognized 
by our forefathers, and sacred to our God and his- 
tory alike, and not to be tampered with by unprin- 
cipled classes and legislation for an unpatriotic 
class. It is a historic declaration that this is an 
essential element inseparably interwoven in our 
history and fundamental law and not subject to the 
politicians or to private interpretation. This fact 
is highly educational to our people and to those 
who come from other shores to make their home 
with us. In this country, subject to such a large 
influx of hundreds of thousands from all lands an- 
nually, we need such an historic landmark more 
than any nation on the face of the earth. The 
proposed changes, if enacted, would destroy all this 
noble record on which we largely build our hopes 
of the future and of perpetuating to our posterity 
this noble fabric of a righteous government. Be- 
sides, once started, the door would be opened for 
constant and increasing legislation and changes 
until there would be no Sabbath law whatever. 
There has been too much special legislation already, 
in other directions. We need this holy safeguard, 
recognized by Congress, the Supreme Court, na- 
tional and state laws, as a glorious and sacred 



The Sabbath. 75 

heritage of our fathers. This Sabbath law has 
stood the test of over one hundred years (113) of 
our national life and state life, and during this pe- 
riod our greatest history has been made. Upon the 
principles included and here recognized our coun- 
try has grown up and our moral standard elevated 
and maintained. Here, then, we need to stand, 
without change. All the great nations of antiquity 
had their downfall in departing from the moral 
standards upon which they were conceived. This 
Sabbath law has wrought well. It is attended by 
splendid fruits. No possible good reason can be 
given for its change. It is in reality a great herit- 
age from our fathers in a Christian land, and none 
do we need to rally around with greater loyalty and 
determination than this which constitutes a statute 
fundamental to our form of government and all our 
free institutions. Take from us our historic moral 
basis and our government is undermined at the cor- 
ner-stone. We need this as a safeguard for our 
youth. Youth in modern times presents a danger- 
ous path. Such a day with all it commemorates 
and suggests is a necessity to the moral direction of 
our growing citizenship. The Sabbath is not a 
subject of private interpretation to be changed by 
legislatures without character or morals. It is his- 
torically an integral part of our nation, sacred with 
all its other massive foundations. We are decidedly 
a Christian nation, and he who does not recognize 
that fact is disloyal to the fundamental element on 



76 Reason, History, and Religion. 

which the entire fabric of our nation has been con- 
structed. The Sabbath is a central tower and 
stronghold of our government and essential to it. 
" In God we trust " has been cut on our coin, and 
the sky blue and stars form the field of our national 
flag. Our Sabbath is the central figure in the his- 
torical group. The proposition comes from a dan- 
gerous class. Is it not a striking fact that from the 
two cities whence came the special trains claiming 
to be passengered by American citizens to the state 
capitol, to favor a change of our existing Sabbath 
law, come the astonishing records of fraud, immor- 
ality, and graft which have astonished the world 
and disgraced our whole nation (Philadelphia and 
Pittsburgh) ? They are now degraded and humili- 
ated in the presence of the entire world. That 
should furnish sufiicient evidence alone against ac- 
cepting any such proposition. We rejoice to-day 
in the mighty rebuke which the noble class of honest 
citizens have administered in both these cities, 
which have redeemed their fair name and that of 
our whole State. Providence here was certainly 
illustrating what a dangerous class this is which 
seeks the change of the Sabbath law. Any changes 
made in our present Sabbath law would be chron- 
icled as a victory for the immoral classes and for 
those who in all lands are opposed to law, order, 
and the possession of property, morals, and honesty. 
Unmasked, these proposed changes are really a 
direct blow against the very pillars of our govern- 



The Sabbath. 77 

ment. In the addresses made by the advocates of 
change before the legislature, their true character has 
been more manifest than in the proposed bills and the 
printed discussion of them. The ministry and the 
Christian have been openly branded as hypocrites 
in their upholding of this time-honored and most 
sacred institution. This proves what is back. 
These fundamental laws ordained by Almighty 
God and endorsed by our pious ancestors, are 
branded as " Blue Laws," and " Antiquated," terms 
at once blasphemous before God and ungrateful 
and unpatriotic before the memory of our fore- 
fathers. There is no good reason for a change 
and none has been cited; This day is needed and 
essential to the education of our youth in morals 
and all the higher and more elevating elements of 
human character, and to prepare them for the dan- 
gerous paths of life. This is emphasized when we 
consider the matter of immigration. Attention has 
been called to this matter in public addresses by 
our ex-Presidents and by our present President ; by 
Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, and Roosevelt, as 
well as by other prominent statesmen. It is essen- 
tial to religion, morals, and the development of 
character. No nation has ever prospered which 
has not regarded as vital these things. Finally, 
then, from whatever standpoint we consider this 
question, we must arrive at the same conclusion, 
that is, that any backward change of our present 
Sabbath law will result in evil consequences. 



78 Reason, History, and Religion. 

whether we consider it as a question of universal 
history or fundamental law necessary to Christian 
government and the highest state of civilization, 
or as purely a matter of citizenship and morals, or 
for character building in the rising generation, or 
as a matter of changing prestige in the long stand- 
ing moral basis of our free institutions. There is 
no other way to consider it. We must, therefore, 
look at the duty of maintaining our present stand- 
ard on the Sabbath question as fundamental, and 
hence the unquestioned duty of all good citizens to 
uphold the Sabbath law, by word and example, and 
to look upon those who seek to lessen its character 
as the enemies of our underlying principles of 
government and morals. 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHAT IS THE GREATEST IX HISTORY? 

" And it shall come to pass in the last days (latter days), that 
the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top 
of the mountains (at the head), and shall be exalted above the 
hills ; and all nations shall flow unto it." — Isal^h ii. 2. 

TX these days of agnosticism and skepticism on 
^ the part of some educated men, this text stands 
as a great rock for protection to those who believe 
in Prophecy and Revelation. It is a great and 
wonderful statement to come from a man over 700 
years before Christ, and in one of the darkest periods 
of the histor}' of the Church and of religion. In 
this prophecy Micah and the Psalmist join with the 
great Evangelical prophet, Isaiah. And indeed in 
Genesis, over 1600 years before the Christian Era, 
the patriarch Jacob, on his death bed gathered his 
sons about him and told of the latter days. So 
wonderful is the power of God and of revealed truth. 
We look backward now almost three thousand years, 
upon this prophecy in the golden age of its fulfill- 
ment To the Christian student of histor}-, it is 
thrilling to see this rise and progress of the Church 
from Abraham to Christ and from Christ to the 
twentieth centur\', where you and I now stand. 
What a wonderful picture ! We now live in this 

(79) 



so Reason, History, and Religion. 

glorious age of history and prophecy fulfilled. 
With what assurance the prophet speaks of what 
to human eye and thought was apparently impos- 
sible. Mark his words, "Audit ^-^<2// come to pass, 
the Ivord's house shall be established." There is a 
marvelous sublimity about such words and such an 
act. He declares that among the philosophies and 
theories of the great teachers of history, which rise 
up as hills and mountains of thought, Religion, 
the Church, the Word of God, shall tower above all 
and be established above all as the highest mountain 
of truth. There may be some allusion here to the 
second peopling of the world, through Noah. God 
began the peopling of the world in the fertile plains 
of Shinar, the garden of the world. The second 
time He began the peopling of the world through 
Noah and his family from the mountain chains of 
Armenia on Ararat, 17,750 feet above the plain, the 
head of the great mountain ranges and sources of 
the great rivers which formed these fertile valleys. 
There is something significant, perhaps, in that. 
Thus he means that the kingdom of God, His truth, 
and His Church shall be exalted as a great mountain 
chain above the theories and teachings of the an- 
cient and modern skeptics and philosophers of 
reason which stand as hills around the world. And 
now in this twentieth century, how mar\^elously 
all that has been fulfilled. IvCt us now come more 
directly to our subject under the light of this proph- 
ecy and its results. The present period is remark- 



What is the Greatest in History? 81 

able for its deep interest in ancient history and the 
light it may throw upon what have been called pre- 
historic periods. Until lately little has been known 
of ancient periods outside of the Bible. During the 
last century especially many discoveries have been 
made in Babylon and Assyria, the known seat of 
many of the older and most highly civilized nations. 
Clay tablets and clay cylinders written in a language 
of marks and characters termed Cuneiform, and of 
which it is claimed that a stone containing the key 
to this before unknown language has been found 
— the Rosetta Stone, though it is admitted by all 
that these characters often mean and represent 
several things. In these Babylonian excavations 
have been found fragments of tablets which seem 
to contain accounts of the creation, the flood, and 
several of the ten commandments in fairly good 
order. It is a wonderful fact that they sustain the 
Bible account. Now a professor in Germany named 
Delitzsch undertakes to say that the civilization 
and moral code of laws of the Hebrews derived their 
beauty and form from the Babylonian civilization, 
and this idea prevails in some magazine articles and 
literature which come into the hands of our youth 
and homes as well as university students, and foster 
skepticism. Eminent amongst those who contradict 
these errors and maintain that the Bible stands on 
an infinitely higher plane are Dr. Eduard Koenig, 
professor in the University of Bonn, and also Dr. 
Hilprecht, of the University of Pennsylvania. There 



82 Reason, History, and Religion. 

is neither foundation nor excuse for this speculative 
and skeptical view of long-established facts. Let 
us now consider briefly the subject with which we 
started. 

What is the greatest institution or movement in 
the history of the world ? Or what is the greatest 
product of the ages ? The world has its fruits and 
its harvest periods. What do its records reveal as 
the most wonderful result in the progress of the 
centuries ? To the student of ancient history this 
becomes a question of the greatest moment. We 
recognize that to this question there might be 
various answers from a human standpoint. The 
scientist might have an answer, the philosopher, 
the astronomer, the discoverer, and inventor alike. 
Some might point to the Pyramids and Sphinx or 
Obelisks of Egypt, the dynasties of the Pharaohs, 
the seven wonders of the world, or the erection of 
ancient shrines to the gods, or the great courts 
of the world, the golden images to Assyrian 
deities, or the mighty conquests of their illustrious 
kings. Still others may cite the founding of em- 
pires, the framing of languages, the system of writ- 
ing, the discovery of steam, the invention of print- 
ing, the " Magna Charta " of liberty, or, finally, 
the great conquests of civilization. The historian 
has chronicled many things which are the product 
or result of history, the outgrowth of the ages. As 
a special student of history, science, and philosophy, 
during the past decade, no one appreciates these 



"What is the Greatest in History? 83 

Splendid achievements of history more than the 
writer. The discoveries of Assyria and Babylon, 
in the plains of Shinar, where the peopling of the 
world began, have brought to light matters of pro- 
found interest to the student. These plains, con- 
taining mounds of decayed walls and ruins of 
ancient cities, lying silent for centuries, have pre- 
served many important records, in the clay tablets 
of the past, in which the student of to-day and 
the churchman are profoundly interested. So 
long as they are not given undue weight by their 
friends in determining the facts of Bible his- 
tory and chronology, be3^ond their domain, these 
records of these kingdoms and their mighty 
efforts to solve the problems of the world by their 
wise men and astrologers are unquestionably of 
great importance and interest. Yet we do not find 
even here the answer to our question. Our thought 
and our eye rest upon something vastly greater 
than all these. Standing as we do, as yet, on the 
threshold of this twentieth century, the greatest of 
all, and looking backward six thousand years upon 
the rusted pages of history and turning them over 
and over from the beginning of history until the 
Christian Era, we find that religious thought and 
action ruled the world. Looking backward for two 
thousand years to Pentecost, we answer, the great- 
est in history is the Church of Jesus Christ. No 
force, influence, power, institution, or movement in 
all the ages can be likened unto it. 



84 Reason, History, and Religion. 

First. We answer, the Church, because it stands 
alone covering all the pages of history as one con- 
tinuous principle from the foundation of the world 
in its development until the present. In the rise 
and fall of empires from the building of the tower 
of Babel in the plains of Shinar, where nations 
were formed and the inhabitants divided also on 
the question of one God and many gods, on true 
worship and on pantheistic ideas, there has been 
one unbroken line of faith and worship, from the 
altar to the tabernacle, temple, synagogue, and the 
Church. From the dawn of the Christian Era 
there has been one continuous development and in- 
crease of influence and power. 

Second. We answer, the Church, because it 
alone dealt successfully with all the greatest ques- 
tions and problems of history — God, creation, man, 
destiny, revelation, resurrection, eternity, the future 
life, and, finally, of eternal happiness with God, that 
one Elysium after which all the peoples of history 
and nations and languages sought, and all the 
greatest philosophers, teachers, schools, and courts 
of the world strived, and failed to solve. 

Third. We answer, the Church, because it has 
accomplished the greatest achievements of history, 
in that it has contended with and triumphed over 
all the philosophers of the ages — Epicurean, Stoic, 
Ancient, Grecian, Roman, and modern evolution, 
skepticism, and infidelity or agnosticism. All these 
systems have in the attainments of their greatest 



"What is the Greatest in History? 85 

heralds or philosophers assailed the historic creed 
and faith of the Church, and all of these are prac- 
tically silenced in this twentieth century. They 
have been driven from the platform of open dis- 
cussion. It has also, with its revealed truth and 
Christ-proclaimed Gospel, broken all the old relig- 
ions of the ancient world and builded over all these 
ruins its own simple faith in the cross of the cruci- 
fied Jesus, as the Son of the living God. It has 
succeeded in establishing friendly communications 
and relations between all the nations of the earth, 
tending toward universal peace, due alone to the 
promulgation of its principles as centered in its 
head and corner-stone, Jesus Christ, carried by 
thousands of missionaries and the commercial agen- 
cies of our civilization. And through and by its own 
principles and spirit, the greatest liberty has been 
conceived and founded and the noblest types of 
civilization and character have been built up and 
established. To-day the historian finds it centered 
as the life power in the strongest and grandest na- 
tions of modern times, with the largest following in 
the world, and its principles controlling more than 
half the peoples of the earth. Finally, there must 
be something vastly more than human in an insti- 
tution that has such a history, that has existed so 
long, that has exerted such a mighty influence for 
consecutive ages over the most mighty and intelli- 
gent of the ages, that has met and triumphed over 
such deeply seated superstition and philosophy with 



86 Reason, History, and Religion. 

historic centuries behind it. How can all this 
be accounted for in any other way than by the rec- 
ognition of that God, whom Paul says is over all, 
through all, and in all ? It must have an inspira- 
tion from above and a power that is stronger than 
intellect, conscience, intuition, will, and all the 
forces which it has led and developed and con- 
quered. Surely it is the kingdom of the one true 
and Almighty God who reigns over all. The 
Church, in addition to all this, represents more and 
stands for more than any other organization and 
institution in history. What is your relation to it ? 
And what are you doing for it ? What a heritage 
and what a responsibility ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

PII^ATE'S QUESTION — "WHAT SHALL I DO THEN 
WITH JESUS?" 

" What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ." — 
Matthew xxvii. 22. 

piLATE, the Roman governor, here asks one of 
-■■ the most momentous questions which ever came 
before the world for decision. The presence of 
Jesus Christ in the Roman Judgment Hall was one 
of the most important events in the history of the 
world. Upon his decision may hang the greatest 
purpose of God and the events of human history. 
Pilate, in some measure, realized the hour. An 
innocent man of marvelous bearing is presented as 
a criminal. He has endeavored to avoid the issue ; 
but that was impossible. He cannot be on both 
sides of this question, no matter what may be his 
efforts. In many respects this scene is a type of 
what is presented to each man and woman in this 
life — the great question as to Jesus Christ as the 
Saviour of mankind from the effects of sin. 

First. Jesus Christ Before the World. God, as the 
Supreme Ruler of the Universe and the Creator of 
all things, has clearly presented His Son Jesus 

(87; 



88 Reason, History, and Religion. 

Christ before the world as the Redeemer, for the 
consideration of all men and women of all nations 
and languages. History proves beyond all contro- 
versy that such a person as Jesus Christ lived and 
taught, and that He claimed to be the Son of God 
and the Son of Man. Conceived by the Holy Ghost 
and born of the Virgin Mary, thus uniting in His 
nature the divine and the .human, making a two- 
fold nature ; thus joining the interests of heaven 
and earth in redeeming from sin the lost race, lost 
by falling from grace through the sin of disobedi- 
ence. Two things are beyond question. First, 
that such a personage appeared ; and second, that 
He and His followers made this claim for Him ; 
that His life and history have been recorded in the 
most authentic history or biography — in the Gos- 
pels — that have ever been written ; that in addition 
to this His life and teachings, as well as His acts 
and deeds, have been attested by the same unques- 
tionable witness ; that in the most marvelous way 
these facts have been kept before the world. More 
persons of the highest character have been associated 
in this work of keeping the consideration of these 
facts in public view than concerning any other fact 
of history in the world. Their publication has en- 
dured and outlived and triumphed over more strenu- 
ous opposition than any other narratives in the his- 
tory of the world. They have been published and 
circulated and carried to all the nations of the 
earth. Their followers have been more persistent 

LoFa 



"-What Shall I Do Then ^With Jesus?" 89 

and determined and heroic than those associated 
with any other work, no matter how splendid. The 
sacrifices for liberty, the founding of any govern- 
ment, or the defense of any principle, no matter 
how historic or important, are not to be com- 
pared with the noble devotion that has been per- 
petuated by the heralds of the gospel throughout 
nineteen hundred years. All unite in supporting 
and spreading the story of the Christ before the 
world. And in this work there has neither been 
personal gain nor individual honor. The motives 
have been the most simple and sincere of all that 
have ever influenced mankind. For this there can 
be given but one reason. That reason must be the 
sincerity and faith of the followers. In addition to 
all this, these heralds of the Christ have not been 
fanatics. History shows that they have been those 
of the most deliberate character and the ripest judg- 
ment ; and that the principles for which they stood 
were the grandest in history. It is conceded that 
such a personage as Jesus Christ was upon the earth. 
His life and character are universally admitted to be 
beyond reproach ; that as a personage He is as pre- 
eminently above and superior to all the grandest 
types of manhood presented in the history of the 
world as the heavens are higher than the earth. 

Second. What will you do with Jesus ? This is 
a question which each individual, like Pilate, must 
answer. Jesus and His claims are before each man 
and woman, and each one must decide. You can- 



90 Reason, History, and Religion. 

not say that you have not had this question properly 
presented to you, for that would not be true ; no 
question nor fact nor principle in the ages has had 
such a world-wide proclamation. Nor can you 
shift it upon another, for it is a personal question 
concerning the individual life and deliverance from 
sin for everyone. Nor can you question the life 
and character or principles of Jesus Christ. For 
nineteen centuries the person and life of Jesus 
Christ have triumphed over all criticism and are 
established beyond question or doubt, pre-eminently 
above and beyond all other questions presented to 
mankind. As to the teachings and principles set 
forth by Jesus Christ, it is also admitted that the re- 
ligious truths of the gospel of Christ are as far 
above the teachings of the greatest philosophers and 
the older religions of the old world as God is above 
men. Hence there is no way of escape from meet- 
ing the question and none in disputing the princi- 
ples set forth. For nineteen centuries they have 
met all other theories, and have gained the victory 
of the ages. 

The positions of the Skeptic and Unbeliever are 
without foundation. It cannot truthfully be said 
that the story of the Christ does not accord with 
reason or history. Reason and history are two great 
factors in making up our minds on any question, 
and in deciding this question two other factors come 
in, conscience, our moral factor, and our spiritual 
consciousness, or our spiritual sense and religious 



"TVhat Shall I Do Then ^With Jesus?" 91 

intuitions. But what of reason and history ? We 
find that the idea of a " Messiah," a promised one, 
as a deliverer coming to teach the people and intro- 
duce a newer and better life, was almost, if, indeed, 
not altogether universal. In all nations that have 
had an intelligent history we find traces of this. 
The eminent Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of the 
Bible and Bible History, says : " The expectation of 
the return of a golden age upon the earth was com- 
mon in heathen nations." The term " Messiah " 
was used in many nations. The coming of the 
Magi from Persia, representing one of the oldest 
nationalities and religions and philosophies of the 
world, attests this fact. In Chinese religious history 
we find that the birth of Gautama, as a Buddha, a 
perfect or illumined one, corresponds wonderfully 
with the miraculous birth of Christ. In Chinese 
history the human and the divine united in the 
birth of Gautama, and that was almost contempo- 
rary with Isaiah the prophet (700-600 B. C). And 
that when he was born his queen mother, Mayadevi, 
named him '' Siddhartha," which means " He by 
whom all ends are accomplished." The attending 
priests at his birth said he would be " a world's Em- 
peror," or if he renounced his earthly dominion he 
would be a " Saviour of worlds." Now think over 
that, see how it harmonizes with the Christian's 
story of Christ, from which prophecy it was taken, 
thus affording wonderful corroborative testimony. 
Jesus began His public ministry at thirty years. 



92 Reason, History, and Religion. 

Gautama as a Buddha, at twenty-nine years, became 
conscious of his higher destiny and took upon him- 
self the ascetic life, that is separated himself from 
all worldly things. This is just one witness from 
the history of other peoples and nations as a matter 
of historic testimony. The world only presents 
four other ways than accepting Christ. 

First. The Jewish religion which accepts the 
Old Testament Scriptures and not the Gospel. 

Second. Mohammedan, with the Koran for a 
Bible and Mohammed as prophet. 

Third. The heathen religion, which is human 
philosophy or idolatry. 

Fourth. Agnosticism, which simply says we do 
not and cannot know. Hither one of these or the 
Christian religion. For under these five the whole 
world in history has placed its millions. Your 
place must be amongst the five. Which will be 
your choice? Which has Revelation, history, rea- 
son, and common sense ? Civilization, liberty, pros- 
perity, happiness, and, above all, the truth ? 

This is a personal question. Each individual 
must decide it for himself or for herself and abide 
by the consequences. The Almighty Author of the 
Universe holds each one responsible for the rejection 
of His Son and the plan of salvation founded on 
His Son, Jesus Christ. Have you considered all 
these consequences ? If you do not accept Christ, 
what do you believe ? What do you accept ? What 
have you decided upon in place of the plan set forth 



•'T?7hat Shall I Do Then ^With Jesus?" 93 

in the Bible and in Jesus Christ ? Have you con- 
sidered the consequences of the rejection of the 
Christ? The world, with all its wise men and 
objectors, furnishes no solution and presents no 
deliverer or plan for deliverance from sin or for the 
satisfaction necessary to secure the favor of God. 
There is no other name and no other plan. Unless 
Christ is accepted, the world is without hope. 
What an awful state or conclusion that is to reach. 
Christianity presents the only plan of favor with 
God in all the world, and that centers in Jesus 
Christ. No one can get away from these conclu- 
sions. The great philosophers of antiquity, Greece 
or Rome, left nothing on record to depend upon. 
Not a system of philosophy, worship, or of religion 
in the world presents any clear conception of the 
future life outside of Christ and the Gospel. It is 
Jesus Christ or nothing. Have you not seen that ? 
The moment Christ is accepted as the Son of God 
coming under the law or the Old Testament Reve- 
lation, the whole plan is as clear as sunlight. 

First. We have a Supreme Ruler of the Uni- 
verse. Then we have the presence of man with 
good and evil. Then we have Revelation which 
explains all things : The creation of the world and 
of man, man's sin of disobedience, his separation 
from a holy and righteous God because of this sin. 
Then the love of God even for man who had fallen 
from grace, because God had created him. Then 
the great plan of man's redemption through Christ, 



94 Reason, History, and Religion. 

the God-man who in His twofold nature, united the 
interests of God and humanity. He Himself being 
without sin atoned for sin, by His death on the 
cross, which fulfilled the law as the decree of God. 
Then the restoration of man into divine favor, 
through his expressed faith in Christ and the pardon 
of sin by the Father, because of this. Here we have 
a complete plan of salvation, reasonable, and full of 
hope and promise. What have you done with this 
plan ? To reject it, defies God and brings eternal, 
divine wrath and punishment. To accept insures 
divine favor and eternal life in blessedness forever. 
Where do you stand ? Where will you take your 
stand ? With the Church or with skepticism ? 



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